But, I am a Liberal!

The Sad Red Earth takes down Glenn Greenwald

2012-01-25T08:34:00.001-06:00

A.Jay Adler links to a post by Reilly at Counter-dominance on Glenn Greenwald in regard to a piece he wrote following the death of Cristopher Hitchens. The whole piece is worth your time, but here is a choice bit:

Just as in the Hitchens piece, Greenwald diminishes the actual societal forces at play on one side and invents forces by elevating trivialities on the other side, so that both conform to his narrative. And again as in his Hitchens post, Greenwald, writing from his influential platform over which he has complete editorial control, strikes the pose of victim on whom “demands” are being made even as he spends most of his word count on conflation and inference rather than directly addressing an argument, and even though the oppressive forces he tilts against are little more than other people’s opinion.

Update: 4:13 PM.

Let the Church Say Amen

2012-01-22T15:07:00.000-06:00

This morning, I was lucky enough to catch Let the Church Say Amen on TV, a moving documentary about the World Missions for Christ Church. This small church and its congregation has been making a positive impact on the lives of the poor in Washington DC for years, and the film received accolades when it was released in 2004.

A History of Socalism for the small screen

2012-01-13T20:51:00.001-06:00

It has been out for some time but if you missed the opportunity to catch it on PBS, the film version of Joshua Muravchik's excellent book, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (hosted by Ben Wattenberg) is now available in its entirety on youtube (with multiple comments from the Hitch). For those unfamiliar with Muravchik, he is now a leading neo-conservative, but was once a leading figure in the democratic socialist left, heading the Young People's Socialist League in the 1960s. He would later drift right, but his work documenting various socialist movements last century is one that still contains a tinge of nostalgia and honesty about the desire for a better world imbedded in various socialist movements. The successes of social-democratic models in Europe, America, and Asia are also presented in fair, and positive light. Additionally, Muravchik's work focused on some lesser known socialist leaders and movements, such as Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and Pandit Nehru in India.

Part 1:Part 2:

Elsewhere in 2012

2012-01-12T20:02:00.001-06:00

Fine thoughts from Bob on the Stephen Lawrence case. A follow up here.

Anti-German Translation on the Hitler Youth haircut.

Adam Holland has provided great criticism and fact-finding related to Ron Paul. His most recent piece on the topic should be read by all.

The Fat Man ponders morality.

Marko's 2011 retrospective is worth the time.

Poumista on books and obituaries.

Johnny Guitar - Defending the indefensible with the absurd.

Terry Glavin on China.

Social Media and Insurgencies

2012-01-12T19:49:00.001-06:00

Sean Kennedy has an excellent piece up at Small Wars Journal detailing the power social media has in changing the political landscape, while also providing a means to insurgent groups. Just a bit:

"Although social media has been widely lauded as a positive force for social change, the successes of insurgents in Egypt might be best explained by the Mubarak regime’s unwillingness to develop a proactive approach to the insurgency, and specifically his disregard of the Internet. Counterinsurgents of the future will likely conduct a pervasive, coordinated, preventive Internet propaganda campaign designed to undermine opposition groups. China and Russia already practice these methods with the purpose of preventing insurgencies from forming in the first place. Pro-regime forces in Syria have used the same new media tools as insurgents to disseminate information."

When Mitt Romney Came to Town

2012-01-11T21:09:00.003-06:00

I would have never believed the following video would be released during a Republican primary by someone within the party, let alone Newt Gingrich. But it is great, and worth a watch.

Santorum: The Trojan Working-Class Candidate

2012-01-09T22:39:00.002-06:00

Watching the Republican debates, I occasionally found myselfnodding to Rick Santorum’s proclamations. Much like Ron Paul, Santorum seemedto be challenging the status quo of the Republican Party. Ron Paul looked to further libertarianism at every level of government, while Santorum argued that the trickle-down, pro-business model of social and economic orderthat has become the norm in the Republican Party hurt America and its culture. Having a Republican candidatetalks about putting public funds towards supporting families or working tore-energize our manufacturing sector was the type of talk that could energizeeven a stalwart Democrat. Santorum quickly revealed himself to be a shill forcorporate interests, as his actual polices demonstrate. Yglesias wrote:

“For A Working Class Champion Focused On Social Mobility, Rick Santorum SeemsTo Be Pretty Interested In Cutting Rich People's Taxes.”

Santorum may claim to look out for the working class (whenhe is not denying class entirely), but his candidacy is yet another in along list of corporate minded individuals that works to pull support away fromcandidates that may actually support working class interests.

What is it that Ron Paul fans fail to grasp?

2012-01-03T18:39:00.001-06:00

Andrew Sullivan (not a blogger I have the greatest respect for, but that I do find entertaining), seems unable to understand that Ron Paul's conspiratorial policies are exactly what makes him appealing as a candidate. Kevin Drum, writing for Mother Jones, notes the following about Ron Paul:

"Bottom line: Ron Paul is not merely a "flawed messenger" for these views. He's an absolutely toxic, far-right, crackpot messenger for these views. This is, granted, not Mussolini-made-the-trains-run-on-time levels of toxic, but still: if you truly support civil liberties at home and non-interventionism abroad, you should run, not walk, as fast as you can to keep your distance from Ron Paul. He's not the first or only person opposed to pre-emptive wars, after all, and his occasional denouncements of interventionism are hardly making this a hot topic of conversation among the masses. In fact, to the extent that his foreign policy views aren't simply being ignored, I'd guess that the only thing he's accomplishing is to make non-interventionism even more of a fringe view in American politics than it already is. Crackpots don't make good messengers."

To which Andrew responds:

"And yet many, many voters who watch and listen to the man do not see a crackpot. They see the only person in public life prepared to tell the truth: that America cannot afford its current military-industrial complex and entitlement state; and that America's lurch after 9/11 toward authoritarianism and empire has been disastrous for our interests and liberties."

Selectivity at its most obtuse. Andrew claims that he only likes Ron Paul for his "good positions" (something I am not entirely sold on, seeing how Andrew spilt plenty of digital ink on the Sarah Palin/ Trig conspiracy, and justifying the Bell Curve). I have no doubt that some of Paul's supporters like him for his "legitimate," and understandable critiques of the Federal Government and interventionism. What Andrew seems unable to grasp is that some Americans believe terrible, crazy things. Significant percentages of the US public believes the American government was involved or had prior knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Only 4 in 10 Americans believe in evolution. Shit, one in five Americans believe the sun revolves around earth! Why Andrew thinks that this same group of people would not also support a crazy, racist, conspiratorial crank is beyond me. Andrew has it backwards; it is Paul's craziest ideas that provides his most forceful draw. If people were simply drawn to him for traditional libertarian ideals and limited intervention abroad, they could have supported Gary Johnson.

Guest Post: Who Keeps Shitting The Bed?

2012-01-02T08:10:00.004-06:00

Horace Brickley is an author that has fashioned an extensive body of work in a rather short period of time at his blog, Horace Brickley's Assault on Virtue. He is currently a teacher, working in Taiwan. This is his take on the 2012 U.S. election.

Like most Americans, politics is a dirty word around me. Thechoices given for elected officials is less like choosing between “cake ordeath” and more like choosing between Chinese water torture and water boarding– one is clearly worse than the other, but both are just awful. The upcomingpresidential election is going to be one of those moments. We Americans, if weeven bother voting in this catastrophe, are going to be given three options: adisappointing incumbent that spends money that doesn't exist anywhere, whatevercaricature of a politician that survives the Republican primary, and opting out(or throwing away a vote on a third party candidate). None of those optionssound reasonable, but that is the downside of a Republic. Our involvement ingovernment is merely choosing the person whom we believe will fuck up theleast, and complaining through any reasonable or unreasonable medium that wecan find to express our discontent.

The two reasons I departed from America, for ayet-to-be-determined amount of time, are the steep drop in opportunities foreducated adults, and my fears of what is to come for the citizens of adeclining America. No candidate in Republican primary has addressed either ofthose issues with anything resembling critical thinking. The tax-cut religionof the Republicans is not going to produce the miraculous effects that theold-guard Republicans hope for, and the front-running candidates are some ofthe least qualified human beings to run a Subway, much less a nationhemorrhaging from debt.

Here's a breakdown of the candidates:

Rick Perry: He's the Tim Tebow of politics. He makes just asmany mistakes as Tebow, and Jesus seems to be the major running theme of hispolitical ideology. “If we just add more Jesus, then everything will work out.”He's done, however, so onto the next of the people that won't be president nextyear.

Michele Bachmann: She's like Christine O'Donnel'smarginally-less-crazy aunt. If Sarah Palin could spell twice as well, then she'dbe Bachmann. The only person involved in the primary that is crazier thanBachmann is Bachmann's husband. She's not only not presidential, but she's likepersonified dark matter - nothing good can come from her.

Hermain Cain: He's no longer in the race because he gotgrabby, or because he wasn't man enough to stand up to the heat. Either way,his policies had a degree of ignorance that can only come from someone tooproud to read a history book or “The Idiot's Guide to Economics.” The 9-9-9plan, or the revised 9-0-9, was an even less realistic plan than Steve Forbe'sflat tax idea back when Forbe's proved why running a corporation does notqualify someone to be president.

Ron Paul: Let me put this out here, Ron Paul isn't crazy.He's not, at all. The problem with Ron Paul is that he does not care about theconsequences for his policies. “Fend for yourself” is what he preaches, whichis easy to say when you aren't dependent on an entitlement system. No one knowsexactly what would happen if Ron Paul became president, and no one ever willbecause he's absolutely unelectable. Road Warrior comes to mind when I thinkabout a Ron Paul presidency, but in actuality he would just be a loud, lameduck president that oversaw a political structure that ignored his pleas fordrastic reforms. He'd be as useless as a president as Vincente Fox.

Jon Huntsman: The only remotely qualified person of the lot,but he doesn't have the bravado or the clout to win anything more than Employeeof the Month at the State Department. Huntsman can't even raise enough money torun one national ad, much less mount an entire campaign. His whole effort looksmore like a clever ploy to write off “Running for President” on his 2011 taxesthan an actual attempt to win a nomination.

Mitt Romney: Romney reminds me of an affable class presidentat a local high school. He really doesn't give a damn what comes out of hismouth, or what he said last week, what Romney wants is the office. He probablyhasn't thought that much about what he's going to do as president, or whetheror not anything that he does will have a positive effect. Romney just wants tosit in that chair and hear himself called “Mr. President.” He's a flip flopperof the strongest degree, and it reeks on him, as if he's pleading with theRepublican base, “Just tell me what you want me to stand for guys!” He claimshe understands the economy, but he wanted to see Reaganomics applied during therecession. Eesh.

Newt Gingrich: Gingrich is like the smart guy you alwaysdebate on issues with and you never win the exchange, but you know full wellthat you were right and he was wrong. His obvious intelligence aside, hisstances on the issues are dumb.

He wants to:

- remove regulations on financial industries

- make a Federal ban on abortion

- remove funding from Planned Parenthood and stem cellresearch

- reduce the size of government and eliminate entitlementfunding (not a bad thing, but how will he implement it)

- make unemployment benefits four weeks (because he's aconsummate realist)

- wants to eliminate capital gains taxes and reduce thecorporate tax rate to 12.5% (so the government can bring in even lessmoney)

- use a Reaganomics-style plan, like Romney.

In other words, he's wrong on the economy, and if you are asocial liberal like me, then you know Uncle Newt wants to get all up in yourpersonal business. He's got all the classic Republican stances without any ofthe charisma. Gingrich wants to reduce the size of government, but he wants tomaintain a strong international presence and doesn't seem to want to reduce thesize of the military. Those two stances conflict on a major level. The size ofgovernment and the cost of government cannot be seriously reduced withoutreducing the size and role of the military abroad. There is some sort of logicbreak inside Gingrich's head, and it doesn't look like it will mend before theelection.

Those are the current candidates, but I feel like I shouldmention Chris Christie. Christie is actually Tony Soprano, and, sadly, thatmakes him the most qualified person to hold office. Unfortunately, Americahasn't had a genuinely fat president since Taft, so that's a no go for theAmerican people. We are too vain to elect such an out-of-shape president whenhe's standing next to the svelte and presidential Obama.

So, what is the purpose of all this? Why did I even botherheckling the Republican candidates? I don't hold allegiance to Obama becausehe's been a failure at virtually everything he's done. He squandered the supermajority he had on an ill-conceived, and unaffordable, attempt at universalhealthcare, and the only thing he's been consistently good at is war, which heran against. Last year I voted early for 2012 president: I voted with my feetand left America for Taiwan. America's my first country, and just like my firstgirlfriend I'll always have fond memories of our time together, but for now wearen't hanging out because she went nuts.

How to Start a Revolution

2012-01-01T21:35:00.000-06:00

I watched a new documentary on Gene Sharp tonight on Current TV, and the power his words have had in inspiring democratic, revolutionary discontent. The trailer for the film can be seen below, and should be sought out by anyone who reads this blog.

In Sharp's influential work, he writes the following words, which should ring true to all revolutionaries in the Muslim world.

"The oft quoted phrase “Freedom is not free” is true. No outside force is coming to give oppressed people the freedom they so much want. People will have to learn how to take that freedom themselves. Easy it cannot be.

If people can grasp what is required for their own liberation, they can chart courses of action which, through much travail, can eventually bring them their freedom. Then, with diligence they can construct a new democratic order and prepare for its defense. Freedom won by struggle of this type can be durable. It can be maintained by a tenacious people committed to its preservation and enrichment."

They will however have the support of democrats elsewhere, in whatever form we can provide. They are not alone in their struggle for liberty and justice.

Live Blogging the Iowa Caucus

2012-01-01T19:22:00.003-06:00

I will be posting live updates during the Iowa Caucus on Tuesday via twitter from 5pm to 9pm Pacific Standard time. You can follow me at @RolandDodds. See you there.

Guest Post: The Republican Primary from an American Conservative Abroad

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-06:00

Shawn Adams is an American teacher in Oman who has been alifelong conservative, and someone I consider a comrade. Our paths crossed sometime ago, and many debates involving politics and culture followed. This is histake on the 2012 Republican primary.

I have been aconservative all my life. I have almost always voted for Republican candidates,but these past few elections have made me rethink who I was voting for and why.When I was asked to write this, I had no idea what to say about the likes ofMitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, or Rick Perry. So I decided to examine myopinions the frontrunners and evaluate their chances of getting the Republicannomination, and in some cases, how I think they would do in the presidentialelection. SPOILER: Not Very Well.

Michele Bachmann: Honestly, this woman kind of freaks me out,even as a conservative; she just has some strange views, and her husband's oddviews do not help her in any way. She may be able to rally the Uber Right, butshe will never pull in the undecided voters in the election, and the RepublicanParty knows this. She will most likely not be nominated.

Rick Perry: This guy just strikes me as Michele Bachmann with XY chromosomes, andI bet most voters feel the same way. Voters tend not to mind you talking aboutyour faith, Rick, but when that is all we hear you talk about, it makes usuneasy. If it makes conservatives worried, then how much more will it put offthe swing voter?

Ron Paul: Once again, he's a little too weird to pull in those much-neededswing votes in the election. He may, in the eyes of most undecided voters, beway too far right of the game to vote for. He and Bachmann both need to seethat although the far-right rhetoric may garner a lot of votes from your ownparty, this will not equal winning an election. For this reason, he will havean uphill battle to get the nomination.

Mitt Romney: I had a hard time choosing whether I thought Mitt or good old NewtGingrich would be the front runner of this primary. I came to the conclusionthat Romney's Mormon beliefs would put him at a serious disadvantage over Newtand would be a real deal breaker, both with the swing voters and the Far Right.Voters might feel that this guy does not think like we do: will he vote like we do in the crunchtime? Plus, come on: you put this guy upagainst Obama, and he will looklike a wacko religious nut, even if he is not.

Newt Gingrich: He can take the primaries and probably willget the nomination. Allthe skeletons are out of his closet. Which means no October Surprise forold Newt. He has proven he is a strong leader and will fight for what hebelieves in. Newt happens to be theonly candidate in this primary who seems normal and who has not gone off thedeep end. The problem with Newt is thathe can be too liberal for the conservatives, and he may be too conservative forthe undecided.

None of thesenon-candidates will have a fighting chance against an incumbent presidentanyway, mainly because the voting public is scared of change and always hasbeen, but also due to the fact that most of the candidates at the moment arejust plain out-there or way too religious for the common public's comfort. Evenif any of these guys (or gals) gets the nomination, they would need a miracleto win the presidential election. So assuming that Obama doesn't screw up inthe coming year (and it would have to be a majorscrew up), we are looking at four more years of Hope and Change. But hey,these are only my opinions. Take them or leave it.

Ron Paul and the John Birch Society on the UN/NWO Conspiracy

2011-12-26T21:00:00.001-06:00

Via LGF.

Ron Paul: The "Just Don't Look" Candidate - Part 2

2011-12-23T15:52:00.000-06:00

(Part1 in this series can be found here).

With Ron Paul facing a firestorm of criticism overthe overtly racist newsletter he published in his name for decades, it isnecessary to understand that it is Paul’s ideasand worldview that are abhorrent, not simply a few racist statements. Thepaleo-right Ron Paul comes from and that he helped cultivated for decades is asugly and reprehensible as it once was; its advocates have simply found moreacceptable ways to transmit the same old conspiratorial andanti-internationalist nonsense.

Yesterday, I posted thefirst part in this series directed at Paul’s domesticpolicies. I argued that while advocating a libertarian free-market, free ofgovernment intrusion and regulation is not racist, it ends up working towardsthe ends advocated by the powerful, as well as racist organizations. I respecta number of libertarians and often appreciate the libertarian impulse forgreater individual control of one’s body, time, and resources. Having saidthat, I have seen how the old-right has adopted a libertarian exterior to pursuetheir true goals: maintaining the class and power status quo by underminingpolicies which redistribute opportunity and access to resources to the poor ordowntrodden. It is no surprise that racist organizations routinely trumpet the“less government” and “state’s rights” appeals commonly echoed in the Ron Paulcamp; if they can’t control the federal government and its nationalinstruments, they can fall back into communities they dominate and avoidcontributing towards the “greater good” they loathe.

Ron Paul has garnered a great deal of support fromself professed liberals and lefties, generally due to his anti-interventionistforeign affairs position. With the United States having achieved little in theway of political success in its most recent wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), it iseasy to see how Paul’s brand of anti-interventionism would be popular withthose who may also find his domestic laissez-faire policies reprehensible. Iwill get into the realities of a Ron Paul foreign policy later, and its lack ofhistorical context. What first needs to be discussed is the role racist andanti-Semitic notions play in formulating Paul’s policy recommendations, and howPaul’s foreign policy is rooted in the same conspiratorial worldview thatdictates his domestic program. His ideology cannot be divorced from thepolicies he advocates, and liberal and leftist supporters should be wary ofsupporting the man.

Mr.Destructo has scanned and posted a number of Ron Paul’s newsletters, andfor those of us that follow the radical right, there really isn’t anything newhere. A distrust and distaste for minorities in the United States, as well as aheightened sense of superiority over colored people living in other nations. The“New World Order” (NWO) conspiracy has been eluded to by Paul for years, and isa requiring point of contention in his speeches and statements. Just a fewyears back, while on the Alex Jones radio show, hadthis to say:

“The new world order people see it as an opportunity to move one step forward.”Paul stated, alluding to an infamous description of the current US ledinternational coalition of powers.

“Bush senior bragged about that, remember he didn’t want to go to Congress,he came and got a token approval in 1990/91 for the Persian Gulf war, but hegot his orders from the UN, he didn’t need to go to Congress… That was thefirst time I heard a president use the words ‘new world order’, anyone who usedthat had to be a conspiracy nut, but Bush was saying this is what we need to dofor the ‘new world order’.” Paul explained.

In 2003, Ron Paul said we should renounce the UN for the followingreason:

“Those bureaucrats are not satisfied by meddling only in internationaldisputes, however. The UN increasinglywants to influence our domestic environmental, trade, labor, tax, and gun laws.Its global planners fully intend to expand the UN into a true world government,complete with taxes, courts, and a standing army. This is not an alarmiststatement; these facts are readily promoted on the UN's own website. UNplanners do not care about national sovereignty; in fact they are activelyhostile to it. They correctly view it as an obstacle to their plans. Theysimply aren't interested in our Constitution and republican form ofgovernment.” (Emphasis mine)

For those unfamiliar with the New World Order, it’sa conspiracy that has its roots in the far right in the 19^th centuryas a reactionto liberalism and modernity among some Christian groups, butbecame more popular in the 1990s, and worked its way into other political persuasionsand movements. The NWO is conceived as an un-elected, totalitarian, and oftenanti-Christian world government that will subvert all nations and people to itswill. Many of the early supporters of the theory believed that the NWO would becontrolled by the anti-Christ, and would bring about the endof days. WilliamGuy Carr was a formative conspiracist who infused thereligious and anti-Semitic overtones of the existing NWO theories to post-waranti-communism popular in the 40s and 50s. PublicEye detailed the outlook that followed Carr’s work:

“Anticommunism became a broad umbrella under which those with a wide varietyof views as to "who is really behind the conspiracy" could findcommon ground. Was the plot run by Moscow Reds, Wall Street Plutocrats, BritishBankers, or the Jews? Issues could have multiple subtexts. For instance therewas concern over the erosion of national sovereignty by the United Nationsbecause it was seen as favoring communist-style collectivism. Right-wingconspiracists expressed the conviction that the United Nations would erodenation-state sovereignty, and facilitate intrusive federal intervention on thelocal level. The concern over federal violations of states' rights was promotedin some cases by libertarians, such as the publishers of the periodical TheFreeman, but "states' rights" often provided a veneer that maskedunderlying segregationist and white supremacist sentiments, even if they wereunconscious.

Anti-Jewish allegations could easily be added to anticommunism. In themid-1950s William G. Carr promoted the anti-Semitic variant on conspiracismwith books such as Pawns in the Game and Red Fog over America.According to Carr, an age-old Jewish Illuminati banking conspiracy usedradio-transmitted mind control on behalf of Lucifer to construct a one worldgovernment. The secret nexus of the plot was supposedly the internationalBilderberger meetings on banking policy. The anti-Semitic Noontide Pressdistributed Pawns in the Game for many years.”

Whether Paul believes some of the crazier positions Carr argued or not isirrelevant. Paul’s insistence on a NWO controlled through the UN, and meant toundermine American sovereignty and values, is simply a new branding of an oldand sinister conspiracy. One can argue that international aid doesn’t help thepeople it is intended to support (a position I will challenge in the nextpiece), but one cannot also say that Ron Paul’s self professed ideology doesnot contribute or dictate his policy positions. Believing that only 5% of“blacks” have “sensiblepolitical opinions,” and that “internationalists” are trying to controlAmerican foreign policy for their own nefarious ends surely influences who youbelieve should receive international assistance and aid. If foreign, colored,and non-Christian peoples are not seen as capable of formulating rationalthought, and the UN is the vehicle in which the American character is beingundermined and destroyed, then you should avoid contributing to them.

Ron Paul may argue that he is merely advocating a “realistic” approach toforeign affairs, but his ideological footing says otherwise.

Part 3 this weekend.

Ron Paul: The "Just Don’t Look” Candidate - Part 1

2011-12-22T18:45:00.000-06:00

Up until a few days ago, I figured Ron Paul wasenjoying his apparent “front runner” status following his strong polling inIowa. His message and persona had been picking up traction for years, andhaving a fanatical base of support across the country has helped spread hismessage significantly. That was, until people started to pay attention to thethings Ron Paul says and believes. I don’t know how the racistnewsletters ordeal is going to affect his chances in Iowa, but it has shakena numberof his supporters. Some have acknowledgedthat the things printed in the Ron Paul newsletter were reprehensible, but haveargued that his message isstill one that needs to be included in the national debate, and thus stilldeserving of support. However, the problemwith Ron Paul goes beyond some terribly racist comments made in his newsletter20 years ago. It is the entire worldview and ideological perspective thatinforms Paul’s policy prescriptions and that of the paleo-right in general.

Ron Paul isn’t objectionable because some racist diatribes were published in hisname, but because he wants to undermine the very norms of international anddomestic solidarity with a libertarian pipe dream that will never be, and greatharm can come from attempting it.

The fact that Ron Paul has swam about in theconspiratorial and racist right for years is nothing new. But public notice isa double edged sword for Paul and his obsessive followers: once you begin receivingthe mainstream media’s attention, people are going to start taking seriouslythe things you say and believe, and the old defensive positions will not bestrong enough to deflect scrutiny.

A few years back, David Neiwert posted an extensive review of Paul’s ideologicalfoundation and its manifestations. David was surprised (as I was at the time)that Paul was picking up so much support on the Left regarding his isolationiststance. However, many of those supporters ignored or were unaware of Paul’slarger philosophical underpinning. Davidwrote:

“Amore important point, though, that's overlooked in all this is that Ron Paulhas made a career out of transmitting extremist beliefs, particularly far-rightconspiracy theories about a looming "New World Order," into themainstream of public discourse by reframing and repackaging them for widerconsumption, mostly by studiously avoiding the more noxious and often racistelements of those beliefs. Along the way, he has built a long record ofappearing before and lending the credibility of his office to a whole array oftruly noxious organizations, and has a loyal following built in no small parton members of those groups.

And it's equally important to understand that he hasn't changed his beliefsappreciably in the interim. Most of his positions today -- including hisopposition to the Iraq war -- are built on this same shoddy foundation offar-right conspiracism and extremist belief systems, particularly long-debunkedtheories about the "New World Order," the Federal Reserve and ourmonetary system, the IRS, and the education system.”

Those who have not been involved with radicalpolitics may not grasp how old Paul’s positions are, and while he has altered the messages advanced by the likes of AlexJones and the JohnBirch Society, he continuesto further their causes nonetheless.

Nor should the racist newsletters ordeal be asimplistic and one dimensional pile-on. Paul and his fans claim that this isjust a diversion from the larger issues “neocons” and the like want toundermine. So let’s forget for a moment that Ron Paul has habitually supportedthe worst fringe figures and groups on the right for decades. Let’s also forgetthat his policy prescriptions are superficially different from these variousconspiratorial and racist organizations. Discussing and debating thejustifications for military intervention and the role of government in oursociety are some of the most pressing and necessary questions of our day. If weremoved Ron Paul from the equation and were left with a more acceptable vesselfor this message, would these positions be more palatable? Perhaps, but you can’tescape what libertarians and paleo-cons actually envision for the U.S. and theworld at large.

Ron Paul made the following argumentconcerning racism, one that is often argued by like-minded individuals.

"Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humansonly as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that allindividual who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; ascollectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americansto adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity"actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist,because it views individuals only as members of racial groups.

Conservatives and libertarians should fight back and challenge the myth thatcollectivist liberals care more about racism. Modern liberalism, however wellintentioned, is a byproduct of the same collectivist thinking thatcharacterizes racism. The continued insistence on group thinking only inflamesracial tensions.

The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited,constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights ratherthan group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewardsindividual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity. Ina free market, businesses that discriminate lose customers, goodwill, and valuableemployees – while rational businesses flourish by choosing the most qualifiedemployees and selling to all willing buyers. More importantly, in a freesociety every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather thandeveloping a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individualresponsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather thanlooking to government to correct what is essentially a sin of the heart, weshould understand that reducing racism requires a shift from group thinking toan emphasis on individualism."

David Neiwert keenly recognized in the aforementioned piece that this isjust a repacking of old-right tropes. Libertarians argue that they simply wantto live in a society that only recognizes the individual, and that the freemarket and a small state will create the conditions that will undermine andremove racism. David writes:

“This is, in fact, just a repackagingof a libertarian argument that multiculturalism is the "newracism" -- part of a larger right-wingattack on multiculturalism. This is, of course, sheer Newspeak: depicting asocial milieu that simultaneously respects everyone's heritage -- that is tosay, the antithesis of racism -- as racist is simply up-is-down, BizarroUniverse thinking.”

It isn’t racist to believe an unrestricted free market would produce an individualistsociety free from racial strife and class preference, but it is highly naive andahistorical to argue that the creation of this libertarian dream world will alleviatepast prejudices and inequalities. While I respect the desire for personalfreedom many libertarians advocate, the state and its redistributive attributescan (and have) helped mend past wrongs and made more just societies. There isno doubt that individuals who belong to a previously discriminated group orclass can achieve success in this libertarian pipe-dream, but many will not, andit will not be because they were stupid or lazy. When you lack access toresources or capital, your chances of success are limited, while those who havesaid access and resources have a drastically better chance at achievingsuccess. Antidotal observations shoulddemonstrate this sufficiently, but statistical studies also verify this point.The Urban Institute, foundthat:

“Being poor at birth strongly predicts future poverty status. Using the PSID,this study finds that 49 percent of children who are poor at birth go on tospend at least half their childhoods living in poverty. In addition, childrenwho are born into poverty and spend multiple years living in poor families haveworse adult outcomes than their counterparts in higher-income families.”

In creating an economic system that allows history’s winners to avoid payingfor the corrections needed to remedy past inequalities would be class war repackagedunder the guise of “liberty.” Such a system would not ease class or racialdivisions, it would solidify them, keeping the old racial and class order inplace. Paul and his libertarian brethren may claim to be blind to race, but inavoiding the deal with these past discrepancies, reveal that they are blind tohistory as well.

Continued in Part 2.

Our Lady of Guadalupe in Kelseyville

2011-12-13T20:31:00.001-06:00

December 12th is celebrated as Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Catholic tradition, and in my small California town, it is a holiday that units the Mexican community and celebrates its traditions and cultural ideals. It is a celebration that starts the evening prior, and at Catholic Churches with a large Mexican disporia, it gathers a significant crowd. Here are a few pictures from the event in my town.

Guest Post: OWS and its Discontents

2011-11-26T15:51:00.001-06:00

This is a guest post from The New Centrist in response to my previous piece on the Occupy movement.

Like most political events of the 21^st century—theGeorge W. Bush presidency, the War in Iraq, the electoral victory and presidencyof President Obama, the rise of the Tea Party, and most recently Occupy WallStreet (OWS)—all provide a Rorschach Test of political sensibilities. What youthink about the Tea Party (grassroots movement or “astroturf”) is highlyindicative of whether you are conservative or liberal. The same holds true for OWS.I realize this is a broad generalization. There are elements of the liberalestablishment that are critical of OWS just as Tea Party conservatives faceopposition from elements of the Republican establishment. However I think thegeneralization holds true in both cases.

Populism of the Leftand Right

Another generalization that can be made of both groups istheir populism, a notion that the country is governed not by the citizens but anunaccountable and out of touch elite. In the case of the Tea Party, the elitesare the political class while OWS rails against the wealthy (the 1%). Bothdecry the increasing role of “special interests” although different ones andoften for different reasons.

Spencer Sunshine’s recent article (linked here)on this populist aspect of OWS is worth reading. He displays a solidunderstanding of Marxism and anarchism but his analysis of the conservativeright is far less developed and verges on caricature. To be specific, lumpingsupporters of the Tea Party movement with neo-Nazis and noting they have “noclear focus” shows the author has not taken the time to pay attention to thedevelopment of the movement.

One does not have to be a Tea Partier to know their focushas always been on Constitutionalism, lowering taxes (Tea stands for TaxedEnough Already), and shrinking the size of the federal government.. Themovement started out small and was generally conservative, populist and to alesser extent libertarian. Of course there was a fairly sizable percentage ofpolitical kooks (Paulistas, La Rouche supporters) in the ranks--setting asidethe colonial revival clowns with their tricorn hats--as the movement grew andthe political potential was clear, the movement was co-opted and the kooks werelargely pushed to the margins.

Manufacturing Consent?

One thing that has been evident to most conservatives (and Isuspect many independents) is the stark difference in the way the Tea Party waspresented in the mainstream media and the way #OWS has been presented. In thecase of the Tea Party, the emphasis was placed on racist images and sloganscarried by some of the protestors as well as the calls for taking up armsagainst the "tyrannical government." These were the views of a smallsegment of the Tea Party but the entire movement was painted as being a bunchof violentwhite racists.

With #OWS, the role of radical groups and organizations has generally beendownplayed, the movement is presented as mostly spontaneous, and largelyharmless. But when we compare the number of violent incidents or crimes at TeaParty rallies versus the Occupy movement here in the U.S., the difference is stark. I amnot aware of any violence or property damage at the Tea Party rallies heldacross the country. With Occupy, there have been reports of burglary, theft, atleast one rape, and a young teen being pimped in one of the camps. The finalstraw was the murder in Oakland.A murder.

OWS, Anarchism andthe Scourge of Consensus

Some includingPaul Berman and Michael Kazin identify anarchistelements of OWS such as presenting a living, breathing, counter-modelto capitalism and the utilization of consensusdecision-making.

The notion that you can create a rival community, a newworld "within the shell of the old", a counter-culture, is intrinsicto anarchism. That this must be consensus-driven is much more recent. It is notevident among the various groups that considered themselvesanarchist--anarcho-mutualists/collectivists/syndicalists/communists—from themid-nineteenth century until the Spanish Revolution. All of them felt thatvoting within their own organizations and groups was just fine.

By the 1960s, elements within the New Left includingStudents for a Democratic Society and others were experimenting with styles ofdecision-making that were viewed as more inclusive, participatory anddemocratic. These themes were also taken up by the Radical Feminist Movement inthe 1970s. Certainly by the 1990s consensus organizing was gaining steamprimarily though the work of Food Not Bombs (FNB), Earth First! and a few othergroups. FNB in particular was effective at distributing inexpensivelyreproduced literature, including their Handbook, promotingconsensus as the only way to order a local chapter:

We make decisions by consensus ratherthan voting. Voting is a win or lose model in which people are more concernedabout the numbers it takes to win a majority than they are in the issue itself.Consensus, on the other hand, is a process of synthesis, bringing togetherdiverse elements and blending them into a decision which is acceptable to theentire group. In essence, it is a qualitative rather than quantitative methodof decision-making.

From my experience on the radical left, the influence ofconsensus decision-making was incredibly negative. The long, drawn-out meetingswith no discernable outcome eventually take their toll. People start to dropout.

While Michael Kazin, Paul Berman and others note the attemptby the OWS movement to create a counter society (some have termed theencampments “microsocieties”) an important difference between OWS and the classicalanarchists is an emphasis on what form the future society would take. All ofthe utopian socialists going back to St. Simon and Fourier had a model in mind.Never mind how wacky the model was, at least they had something to refer to.This is completely missing from OWS. They say this is “all part of the process”but it is not enough for most of us. We want to know what you want, especiallyif you claim to represent us (as part of the 99%).

What Is Next?

None, including the Occupiers themselves, can cogentlyanswer: what is the goal? I understand the whole "We are 99%" but whatelse? What sort of specific policies flow from this besides tax the rich?

If this is all the Occupiers haveto offer, you should be concerned. Tax increases might start with the rich buteventually will trickledown to the middle-class because that is where the real money is:

It serves the interest of both parties to argue about taxes on corporations andthe wealthy because neither wants to discuss the alternative, which is wherethings get touchy. To solve our debt problems, we have to go to where the moneyis — the middle class. People who earn between $30,000 and $200,000 a year makea total of around $5 trillion and pay less than 10 percent of that in taxes(owing mostly to tax incentives and the fact that most families make less than$68,000, where larger tax rates begin).

This is an NPR reporter in the New York Times, not a mouthpiece for the “right-wing conspiracy”.Whatever side of the aisle you place yourself, get prepared for Americanausterity. Unless you are there already...

The Occupy Movement: Bakunin, Bolsheviks, and Change in America

2011-11-23T10:08:00.001-06:00

The Occupy Movement is now a few months into its life-cycle, but since I live in a rural area, I was not able to drop by any of these encampments in Northern California until this previous weekend. Much has been said about these various occupation acts, and I have mixed feelings about the movement (if we can prematurely call it such) and the tactics it has used. While my experience with these protests is limited, I have been following the discussions and debates related to the movement and its tactics, and will dwell on and discuss some of those debates here.

Terry Glavin has not been kind to Occupy crowd. In his recent piece in the Ottawa Citizen, Terry argued:

"The aborted lunacy of Occupism is now descending into merely a Jonestown of the Imbecilities, with eviction notices and standoffs and arrests breaking up Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Toronto, Occupy Halifax, Occupy Vancouver, Occupy Victoria, and on and on. And as usual, there is a celebrity with a conspiracy theory to explain why. Famous pseudo-documentarist Michael Moore fingers the Department of Homeland Security."This is not some coincidence," Moore says. "This was planned and I think the question really has to be asked of the federal government and of the Obama administration.Why? Why?"

Why? It just could be that maybe the Department of Homeland Security doesn't have its agents doing the devil's work in the bylaw-enforcement offices down at 12th and Cambie in Vancouver, and that ordinary working citizens and taxpayers are growing bored with having their public parks expropriated by people who dump buckets of their own urine on parks board workers."

Terry wasn't the only one that has a problem with the currents driving portions of the Occupy movement forward. Spencer Sunshine writing for Shift Magazine recognizes many of the problems a broad movement encounters on the left (and should be of no surprise to readers of this blog):

"All progressive social movements have dark sides, but some are more prone to them than others. Occupy Wall Street and its spin-offs, with their populist, anti-elitist discourse (“We Are the 99%”) and focus on finance capital, have already attracted all kinds of unsavory friends: antisemites, David Duke and White Nationalists, Oath Keepers, Tea Partiers, and followers of David Icke, Lyndon Larouche, and the Zeitgeist movement (see glossary below).

On one hand, there is nothing particularly new about this. The anti-globalization movement was plagued with these problems as well.(1) This was sometimes confusing to radicals who saw that movement as essentially Left-wing and anti-capitalist; when the radicals said “globalization,” they really meant something like the “highest stage of capitalism,” and so from their perspective, by opposing one they were opposing the other. The radicals often saw the progressives in the movement as sharing this same vision, only in an “incomplete way”—and that they only needed a little push (usually by a cop’s baton) to see that capitalism could not be reformed, and instead had to be abolished.

But for numerous others, “globalization” did not mean capitalism. Just as for the radicals, it functioned as a codeword: for some it meant finance capital (as opposed to industrial capital), while for others it meant the regime of a global elite constructing their “New World Order.” And either or both might also have meant the traditional Jewish conspiracy’s supposed global domination and control of the banking system. Whether they realized it or not, the many anti-authoritarians who praised this “movement of movements” as being based solely on organizational structure, with no litmus test for political inclusion, put out a big welcome sign for these dodgy folks. And in that door came all kinds of things, from Pat Buchanan to Troy Southgate."

I agree with both of their points. I bought a cup of coffee at a cafe across from the Occupy camp in San Francisco, and asked the woman working the register how has business been with the camp across the street? She complained that they would come in and steal from the shop and make a mess of its facilities. Even if it is a minority of those at the camp, pissing off the working folks around the location is never a good political tactic, and I hear this woman's sentiments echoed at other Occupy locations.

The picture above was taken at the Occupy San Francisco location by someone on Indybay. While I can not say with certainty, re-enacting Glass/Steagall has been one of Lyndon Larouche's talking points for years now. The frequency in which I see Larouche cult members at protests over the last few years is troubling. With that in mind, the core political principle behind the movement is one that I do support (as would most Americans for that matter). Paul Berman eloquently notes:

"Yes, yes, at Occupy Wall Street the madmen, the madwomen, the Groaners and the neo-Muggletonians will eventually have their day, and the movement will be ruined. Already the Maoists of the Revolutionary Communist Party are at work, together with Ron-Paul-ists, according to another of my informants. Visiting the demonstration on Thursday I noticed that the Workers World Party (which secretly controlled some of the big anti-Iraq War demonstrations, in the name of advancing the cause of North Korea) was already in evidence. The costumed neo-hippies and neo-anarchists will prove to be no match to the fanatics of Leninist discipline. Sooner or later the screw-ball groupuscules will wreck the whole thing. “Creative destruction” is originally Bakunin’s phrase, but the destructiveness of the Revolutionary Communist Party will not be creative.

So the movement will stumble and fall, and a lot of young people will feel a little embittered and distraught.But not every movement or street manifestation has to be what the wooden-head Leninists call a “pre-party formation.” The Tea Party is a pre-party formation. Occupy Wall Street is not, even if some people imagine otherwise. Occupy Wall Street is a festival. It is declaiming truth, and this is good. Wall Street has led the country and the world over a cliff. Somebody needs to say so. The damnable conga-drummers in the downtown streets have appointed themselves to say so. The drumming is not too articulate, but the job of festivals is not to be articulate. (It is the job of magazines to be articulate.)"

The Daily Show recently ran a scathing piece of commentary on the splits that have occurred in the Occupy Wall Street camp. Listening to activists drone on about "horizontal leadership" and other post-modern platitudes often results in its share of eye-rolling on both sides of the political aisle. My criticisms of the lingo used by the New Left to communicate its aims are numerous, and the pseudo-academic babbling has always gotten under my skin. It routinely makes those on the activist Left sound ridiculous and unconnected to real struggles around them.

Having said that, attempting to create different ways to organizing a community, is not without merit. I don't believe for a second that the anarchist model of organization can work on a large scale, and thus undermines its usefulness when confronting pressing problems on the national and international level. Yet, experiencing a community governed by those idealistic and leaderless principles can be inspiring, if even just for a fleeting moment. It may not work on a large scale, and the participatory democracy advanced by the Occupy movement may eventually devour itself, but I feel sadness for those who have not contributed and taken part in a project like this before.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Michael Kazin from Dissent magazine, recently penned a piece concerning the way Anarchism as a political idea has been thrust into the public debate, even if it is not addressed by name. He writes:

"The “principles of solidarity” adopted on October 25 by the General Assembly at Zuccotti Park usefully summarize the updated utopian creed. They include beliefs in “direct, participatory, and transparent democracy,” “a consensus-based decision-making process,” “valuing people before profits and eliminating the exploitation of labor,” “full rights for all people, regardless of document and citizenship status, sexual preference, or gender identity,” “a sustainable economy in harmony with nature.” Red Emma would endorse all these principles, although the one about “practicing and supporting wide application of open-source technologies” would surely puzzle her.

Such romantic notions are easy for pragmatic liberals to deflate: How would “direct democracy” preserve Medicare? Wouldn’t an open border between Mexico and the U.S. lead to an increase in “the exploitation of labor”?

Yet there is something both bracing and even rational about the anarchist revival. When the political and economic heights are occupied, on both shores of the Atlantic, by men (and a few women) who seem at the mercy of finance capital and are unable (or unwilling) to do much to help ordinary people in trouble, it should not be surprising that a kind of non-doctrinaire anarchism has become popular. Anti-authoritarianism can be a useful corrective to authorities who have lost the confidence of the citizenry, if not their legitimacy to rule. It also keeps the Occupiers on guard against Leninist sects and other keepers of extinguished flames and encourages individuals new to activism to speak their minds, create their own slogans, and imagine how to build a better world whose structure is not and cannot yet be known."

Having these ideas discussed, debated, and put into practice is not a scorn worthy exercise, but one worthy of support. I no longer share that idealistic fervor exuded by some of the Occupy movement, but I appreciate seeing these radical principles put into action beyond the university's ivory dome. Perhaps the lasting effect from the Occupy Movement will be a whole new generation of individuals who recognizes the power they have to shape their own lives and the world they live within. That do-it-yourself mindset should be celebrated. As for the sites themselves, this is what I observed at each location.

Davis
My first stop was UC Davis. The day prior, UC Davis police had attempted to disperse a number of students who had occupied one of the school's administrative buildings. Captured on a now infamous viral video, one of the police officers doused sitting students with pepper spray.

By the end of Friday evening, police had successfully cleared the building of occupants, as well as the quad in front. I only found a lone box with the words "Occupy" written on the side down the road from the site of the occupation. As the weekend progressed, the video picked up national (and international) media attention. Since I am still classified as a graduate student at UC Davis, I received a flood of emails from my department condemning the act and demanding action be taken. The school's chancellor was working to minimize her role in the event, and sent out a slew of emails to staff and students. By Monday, the pepper spraying was all anyone was talking about, and a large protest was planned on campus.

The following pictures were taken by the Aggie, the student newspaper on campus.

Definitely the largest protest I have seen on campus, and apparently the quad is now reoccupied with tents on the lawn. The media attention brought to the Davis Occupation surely surged its numbers in the immediate aftermath of the pepper spraying, but I assume the school will not tolerate the quad being occupied for long. With the winter break coming in a few weeks, I would also expect to see less physical support for the occupation as students leave town.

San Francisco
Those responsible for the Occupy camp in San Francisco did pick a picturesque location to set up camp. With the Bay Bridge as a backdrop, the camp was pretty quiet while I was there, as the rain kept folks inside their tents and out of the cold.

You could see a clear divide between the activist crowd, busy cooking breakfast for the camp and contacting members of the media or city politicians, and the transient and homeless population that has convalesced around these Occupy camps around the country. A handful of folks, clearly on drugs and acting erratically, seemed to put the other campers on edge. The police, perhaps hoping to avoid the fugazi that occurred in Oakland, were cordial to the occupiers. Some of the activists seemed to know the police personally, and they discussed problems around the camp. The only altercation I observed was between a deranged woman who refused to leave one of the public toilets the city had set up for the occupiers. As she was carefully escorted out of the camp, I got the sense that most of the occupiers observing the ordeal were relieved to see her go, and did not see the incident through a "Police vs. Protesters" lens.

Oakland
Occupy Oakland was clearly the main event for the Occupy Movement here in the west. The city's mayor had handled the occupation poorly, and well publicized confrontations between the occupiers and the city resulted in unwanted media attention for the city still reeling from allegations of police brutality and abuse. Zombie has a round of pics (and a series snarky comments) of the Oakland camp that existed a few weeks back. What I have found interesting about the Oakland protests, has been the way some of the more destructive and reactionary portions of the activist community have been condemned by an overwhelming portion of the Occupy movement. A few weeks back, the Black Bloc, a loose collection of anarchists that often piggybacks on other protests, roamed through Oakland smashing up shops and causing property damage. Some of the group's participants posted a screed on Indybay justifying their actions. Surprisingly, the comments that followed the piece were overwhelmingly negative, with most condemning the actions of these vandals. One of the commentators wrote:

"I'm an anarchist, and I am also highly annoyed at the way people are employing Black Bloc tactics. What the hell people?

If the folks who insist on doing this were truly interested in creating a world where we can all feel free, then that means that they actually need to calm the fuck down for a second and start listening to what everyone else is talking about. To them I say: Grow up. It's not all about you getting off on "fucking shit up." Some of us are actually trying to bring about a world where we can move beyond Crimethinc tactics and create real, difficult, meaningful dialogue. It might be less glamorous, but it will last a lot longer.I support squatting; I am not even saying that property destruction never has value. But I am saying that if folks don't start reeling it in, we are done. Seriously."

The debate over tactics and property destruction is not a new one on the left, but the fact that Occupy Oakland was on difficult footing to begin with, likely intensified the reaction by members of the activist community opposed to the Black Bloc;s tactics. It was their movement on the line, and they didn't want it dragged through the mud by activists more concerned with destruction and reaction, rather than creation. On Saturday night, some of the Occupy Oakland activists decided to occupy a park off 19th St., just around the corner from the Fox Theater. Unfortunately, it was wrapped up quickly, and both sites were empty by the time I arrived on Monday.

Berkeley
Things were pretty quiet on the Berkeley campus on Monday morning, with just a small handful of Occupy protesters present. As with Davis, I get the sense that the university occupations will fade with the coming school breaks (and as it gets colder outside).

And what would a protest in Berkeley be without a mix of the old counter-culture thrown in? I saw this book lying on the ground in front of dedication of sorts. For those too young to know (or simply too uninterested to care), Bhagwan Rajneesh was a New-Age guru from the 70s that garnered some significant media attention related to his views on sex, and his opposition to socialism and Gandhi. He developed a legion or followers worldwide and has been influential on New Age religious thought that is popular in places like the Bay Area.

Elsewhere: Out and About

2011-11-22T22:00:00.001-06:00

Bob: STOP RAISE YOUR BANNERS FROM HOSTING THE RACIST GILAD ATZMON. Read it, and help build on it.

Graeme has dropped his blog, but has a site at A Wandering Ghost. Hopefully he keeps his metal/politics commentary going.

Creon Critic on the assassins of nation-state democracy.

Marko on Greece and their bailout.

Fine links from Martin.

The Propagandist and I have had our differences, but they have been consistently right on this point.

Terry Glavin, on OWS, with video.

Adam Holland on Ron Paul and his endless nonsense, this time regarding "the Founders."

Shiraz Socialist: Bradford TUC call on music festival to withdraw invitation to Gilad Atzmon.

It is a couple months old, but Mike Beggs' piece in Jacobin Magazine is a fine addition to my pieces on post-modernism.

The Republican Debate and Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-22T21:46:00.001-06:00

I was live blogging the recent Republican debate on National Security on twitter. You can follow me at @RolandDodds.I spent the last few days moving about between Occupy activities in Northern California. I will have a post up tomorrow, with pictures.

Andrew Sullivan’s Favorite Jew Disparager Stumps for Well Know Anti-Semite

2011-09-22T22:30:00.003-05:00

Adam Holland brings to my attention the recent review on theback of Gilad Atzmon's new book by none other than John Mearsheimer, author ofthe terrible "Israel Lobby", a man Andrew Sullivan believes was the "victim" of a "vicious smear campaign."

Mearsheimer's blurb reads:

‘Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identityin the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making itincredibly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense oftheir ‘Jewishness.’ Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism(blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust)to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon’sown case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jewsgreat anguish. The Wandering Who? Should be widely read by Jews and non-Jewsalike.’

Unbelievable, really. Mearsheimer’s “The Tragedy of GreatPower Politics” was a fascinating read, and there is no doubt the man deservesrespect in the field of IR theory, but the critics of the book he produced withStephen Walt were justified in their condemnations, and John’s support for anovert Anti-Semite surely doesn’t help his case.

Update:
Jeffery Goldberg has more on this.

Well, I sure won’t be voting for any of these folks

2011-09-21T18:32:00.001-05:00

At different points in my life, I have voted for (and even stumped for) Republican candidates and politicians. This won’t be surprising to anyone who has read this blog in the last 5 years, and I still believe (and personally know) a slew of Republicans that I consider allies and comrades on a number of fronts. There are aspects of the larger conservative outlook I have sympathizes for, and have found some of the criticisms made by conservatives against our current welfare state and culture compelling on a few points. But the Republican Party’s direction since the election of Obama has exposed a preposterous core of the conservative movement that makes me question whether I can ever cast a vote for the party again.

There are the obvious policy differences. Even the candidates who supported international military engagement or intervention did so on “national interest” footing (a highly contentious phrase that should be extrapolated each time it is uttered). Not a single candidate on the stage believed guarantying health care for the poor or downtrodden was a necessity, let alone a right that all citizens should benefit from. When dealing with illegal immigrants to America, there was a rush to one-up the previous speaker by proclaiming their progressively eccentric and unrealistic policy prescriptions.

Anti-scientific posturing, crass obstructionism, and tactless pandering were on full display at the Republican debate on September 12, yet these marks aren’t even my key point of contention.

Call it a re-discovery of my socialist roots if you will, but a class analysis on action and perception has been an approach that has been lacking from my political analysis in the last few years. Like many on what is sometimes referred to as the “decent” left, the political climate surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the revolutions that have occurred in the Arab and Muslim world since 9/11, resulted in a large portion of my political efforts spent confronting reactionaries that have worked to undermine or distort the efforts made by those involved in those states that have worked tirelessly to build a more just society. The liberals, socialists, and students in those states still deserve (and require) our support and solidarity.

The local economic politics of my home state and country ended up as a second thought. I hadn’t lived in the United States for years, and economic hardships faced by individuals in my own town felt, ironically, quite distant. Additionally, ex-comrades of mine seemed preposterously ridiculous in their activities following 9/11. Pointing out the elements of my old political current that were dead-ends was necessary, or at least felt as if it was upon leaving those movements.

I won’t be rejoining any of these old cadres, but watching the Republican Party and conservative voices make the same tired case for less taxes for the rich in the last decade makes me regret not addressing this point more vociferously. Listening to each Republican candidate on stage last night truly demonstrated the economic vision the party has for America and its people, offering the naked class-interested mindset that informs the party’s economic program. Regardless of the dilemma posed, the solution was always lower taxes for the rich and Wall Street. The crowd cheered, and each candidate patted themselves on the back as if they had just uttered some indisputable divination. Forget the fact that this Republican principle is factually inaccurate, and let’s just assume for a second that tax cuts always produce economic growth. Does this growth always benefit each member of society, and what will the spread between the economic benefits enjoyed by different classes? What are the social consequences of those tax cuts?

These questions are hardly radical in nature, and have been posed by much smarter individuals, but the Republican Party should be required to answer these points in a manner that does not allow for the regurgitation of meaningless political slogans, as they have in all of the debates thus far.

But let’s be honest, we know the answers to these questions. The vision the Republican Party has for the future of this nation is not one I share, as it sees no problem with wealth inequality and a withered state that is incapable of redistributing a dime of their money. The left acted dreadfully during the Iraq War and the foreign policy events that surrounded it, but the Republicans have acted equally as crass in their vapid opposition to everything and anything the Obama administration does. The Conservative insistence that the rich are “over taxed” is silly, seeing that they pay less now to the community till than they have in decades.

The Republicans helped create the financial crises we have before us, and they further exasperate it by not doing the adult thing, and raise taxes to pay for the wars and programs they once so passionately defended. Better yet, they must recognize that a society and an economy is only free and fair when all of your citizens can take part in it, and the way America is trending does not assure such a civilization.

Perry vs. Paul

2011-09-08T20:03:00.001-05:00

Apparently, no love was lost between Paul and Perry at the Republican debate last night.

The Paultards are out in full force, claiming he was assaulted by Perry during one of the commercial breaks.

Fouad Ajami on the Middle East

2011-09-04T20:19:00.001-05:00

From the Hoover Institute's Uncommon Knowledge series.

Postmodernism and the Death of Solidarity, Part 2

2011-08-23T16:55:00.009-05:00

Building on a previous post of mine on Post-modernism and its effect on international solidarity and historicism, I felt that it was obligatory to better define what I meant by “Post-modernism” and why it has been so caustic to the left and its various movements.

I received this response from the New Centrist, which I feel provides an important and necessary addition to this discussion. He writes:

"On a gut level, I agree with your post. Most postmodernist writing is crap. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Sokal affair.

However, as someone who was forced (like yourself?) to examine postmodernist, poststructuralist, and deconstructionist literature I think you are stating the case a bit too strongly here. From this point forward, I’ll simply generically refer to these authors as postmodernists.

The case could be made that the postmodernist turn on the intellectual left was a predictable response to the failure of previous mechanistic, determinist, economic theories that attempted to explain human collective action. Many of these scholars went way too far in the other direction and ended up in the place you describe in this post (insular, jargon-laden, etc.). Nevertheless I think there are some important insights that have come to us from those who could be broadly termed postmodernist.

Most crucial in my own research is the concept of identity as something that is multifaceted, contested and relatively fluid. Previous theories tended to prioritize one aspect of identity or another (class, race, etc.). In particular, many leftist theorists placed class position (really class identity or “consciousness”) as *the* primary factor in radical collective action and ultimately, revolution.
Unlike some who see postmodernism as an ideology that intrinsically contains its own politics, I see the varying postmodernist approaches as providing tools that one can use to apply (or not) in their research. If the tool is appropriate, use it. If not, use another tool. I think the same way about rational choice theory. For some, it is a nefarious right-wing political project. For others, it explains all of human decision making. I think reality is somewhere between these two poles.

Lastly, there are some great authors who apply postmodernist tools but still manage to keep their research empirically grounded, their writing lucid, and their topics genuinely interesting. One great example is William Sewell’s “Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848”. As you can tell by the title, Sewell is concerned with language and how language changes over time. But this emphasis is not exclusive. Sewell examines the rhetoric of specific groups of workers, the relationship between language and collective action, etc. In addition to what workers wrote and said, he also examines workers’ rituals and customs (going back to the feudal era of guilds), forms of solidarity, etc. What was so groundbreaking about Sewell’s work is he displayed that the most important strikes and other forms of militant collective action took place among craft workers (artisans), rather than industrial workers (proletarians).”

All of this is true, and Post-modernism (as TNC noted, I am lumping a couple different strands of thought together here) has its benefits. One of my colleagues at the University of Edinburgh was in the Film Studies department, a place in which Post-modern ideologies and methods were prominent, and even useful. Studying the use of language and imagery, and the resulting effect it has on society and culture, clearly has a place in the study of media. As TNC noted, studying language and how it changes or reinforces physical and political structures also fits well into the study of politics. I would not have these things removed or disparaged. However, the study of language and meaning existed before the rise of what we now call Post-modernism, it is the manner in which the study of language and its imbedded meaning becomes the end-all which it often becomes in post-modern heavy departments.

TNC continues:

“OK, setting aside my personal defense of—if not postmodernism and postmodernists—the possible benefits of some of the tools provided by postmodern theory, I disagree that the political failures of leftist social movements in the 1960s can be traced to the “development of postmodernism as an ideological movement”. I take a far more conventional (conservative?) position. They failed because they discarded—indeed denigrated—the coalition of labor, religious, and civil-rights activists that had made the earlier advances possible. Rather than building the coalition, the New Left tore it apart. Not due to postmodernism, but various forms of ultra-leftism. The postmodern turn came later, after “the movement” was in its death throes and the retreat of activists into the academy. After all, American academics (unless they were fluent in French) weren’t reading Foucault, Derrida, etc. until the 1970s. And it was really the 1980s when all this French theory became so influential.”

This is an important point, and one the various contributors to “The Defense of History” also find agreement with. What is now called “Post-modernism” built upon the arguments made by Foucault, Derrida, and other French theorists but its roots were in the rejection of universalism, especially the western variety (both right and left wing). Post-modernism was not responsible for the failure of the Left in the 60s, but what now constitutes post-modern thought can trace its perspective to what occurred in that era. Pomos like Jean Baudrillard and ex-Trotskyist Jean-Francois Lyotard both state that the 1960s was the era that shifted their thinking (G. Katsiaficas, 1987). Alex Callinicos, in his work Against Postmodernism: A Marxist Critique, argues that Post-modernism’s roots lie in “forms of cultural or anti-disciplinary protest that emerged in the 1960s” (1989, p.162-8). As I argued in my previous piece, many of the voices that constitute post-modernism have their roots squarely in the Left’s failure to achieve its lofty modern goals for society, and the perceived inability of the working class to side with the intellectuals as they led them to the Promised Land. The leftist radicals of the 1960s had not yet read the forbearers of post-modernism, but they had already embraced their relativistic perspective and its rejection of objective reality or universal understanding. It was when they retreated from the political battlefield and directed their attention towards their academic careers that they fully immersed themselves in these ideas, and made them the de facto-leftist positions in many Universities.

TNC points out that post-modernism was also a reaction to the essentialism that characterized Marxist and leftist thinking in the Modern period. TNC writes:

“[There was a] tendency among many leftist authors to impute the working-class with a certain set of traits. Outside of the class dimension, many authors also addressed matters of race and gender with a similar lens. The Pomos challenged this by saying “context matters”. In other words there is no universal “working class” or “Black” person, or man or woman for that matter. These identities always need to be examined in specific times and places.”

This is an important point of contention, and one that I find myself in agreement with the Pomos. It seems so self evident; people come from different backgrounds and face different struggles, and these experiences shape their actions and ideas. Context clearly matters, and that Marxism or historicism was reduced to a simple economic calculation was clearly incorrect on the part of its purveyors. I am not an expert on Marx, but I have never seen the Marxist framework as essentialist or deterministic. Engels defended the materialist conception of historical progress, but provided this caveat:

“According to the materialist conception of history the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure--political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after successful battle, etc, judicial forms and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas--also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.” Engels to J Bloch, September 21-22, 1890 in Marx-Engels Selected Works Vol II, op cit, p488.

Thus, these contextual elements are accounted for in the broader methodological perspective provided in Marxism. While Pomos are right to discuss these specific contextual issues when discussing agency within politics and society, where they have gone astray is in undermining any type of universal link between these groups or individuals. It is this lack of universalism which I find so destructive in building solidarity between individuals.

Aijaz Ahmad, a contributor to “In Defense of History,” articulates the contradiction post-modern conceptions of identity create in establishing universal solidarity between culturally un-alike people. He writes:

“A great problem for socialist theory and practice today is that of the relationship between difference and universality, group rights and indivisible universal rights, the right as woman and the right as citizen, and the right as worker, whether citizen or immigrant”(p.63)

Postmodernists argue (and again, I am speaking broadly here) that universality is a fantasy at best and hegemonic oppression at worse. Ahmad continues:

“This absolutization of identity, this quick abrogation of universality, strikes me as politically very dangerous. For a start: if in the constitution of your identity, I have no rights of cognition, participation, criticism, then on what basis may you ask for my solidarity with you except on the basis of some piety, some voluntaristic good will that I may withdraw at any moment?.... What I am trying to say, I suppose, is that group egoism of discrete communities is perhaps not much of an improvement on the historical egoism of the bourgeois male individual, and that we need forms of politics that constitute human subjects both in their heterogeneity and their universality” (p.63).

Without some universal bond to ground solidarity in, I fear that Ahmad’s description of a faddish and shallow solidarity within the international society will be the reality.

Worse yet is the fetishisation of indigenous or oppressed cultural identities which is a result of post-modernism’s distinctiveness framework. Prospect Magazine recently published a piece by Edward Docx titled Postmodernism is Dead, which made this key point:

“Postmodernism is really an attack not just on the dominant narrative or art forms but rather an attack on the dominant social discourse. All art is philosophy and all philosophy is political. And the epistemic confrontation of postmodernism, this idea of de-privileging any one meaning, this idea that all discourses are equally valid, has therefore lead to some real-world gains for humankind. Because once you are in the business of challenging the dominant discourse, you are also in the business of giving hitherto marginalised and subordinate groups their voice.”

Few would disagree with the overly western or male centric focus in the study of history prior to this period was negative, and that providing space for other voices to be heard and to have their stories and perspectives included in our cultural and historical narrative was necessary. But again, without a strong universalist core, this model can go appallingly off the rails. If one’s political goal is to challenge hegemony and give power to marginalized groups and voices, then why not legitimize theocrats, fascists, and racists? Ophelia from Butterflies and Wheels, commenting on the Prospect piece aptly notes that this means horrendous thoughts and forces will be given weight in the political debate, “Like the Taliban. Like al-Shabaab. Like child-raping priests. Like the BJP. Like the Tea Party. Once you think that “all discourses are equally valid,” you’ve relinquished the tools you need to argue that some discourses are wrong and bad and harmful.” Ken Malik ‘s piece in “Defense of History” suggests that giving legitimacy to all narratives at the expense of universal ones detracts from “the capacity of postmodernists to challenge racist discourse [and] is undermined by their own belief in the relativity of meaning” (pg.119).

I was working on a piece a few years back on the National Anarchist movement in the Bay Area of California. I had noticed that there were a growing number of overtly racist Anarchists that would appear in small groups at music or political events. White-nationalist or racist Anarchism is not a new political movement, but what I began to see was the way the movement’s rhetorical justifications for its existence sounded strikingly similar to those used by leftist-minded sectarian groups. In the Southern Poverty Law Center’s article on the group, they quoted their leader as saying:

“We are racial separatists for a number of reasons, such as our desire to maintain our cultural continuity, the principle of voluntary association, and as a self-defensive measure to protect each other from being victimized by crime from other races," BANA co-founder Andrew Yeoman told the Intelligence Report.”

Identity, voluntary association, victimization, defense of traditions: sound familiar?

Thankfully, most Pomo minded lefties in the West have yet to openly defend the white-racist narrative. Yet, as many of us are painfully aware, several other groups and identities that are the antithesis of the pluralistic society we enjoy are given significance in the debate thanks to this unfortunate ideological perspective provided by postmodernism.

(Part 3 on postmodernism, the scientific process, and American right-wing thinking in a week’s time. Read the first in this series here.)

The World Keeps Turning

2011-08-22T11:14:00.005-05:00

Like Jeffrey Goldberg (and dare I say, Stephen Walt?), I am hesitant to make any kind of overly zealous postulation about the rebel victory in Libya. Things are still unclear, and the difficult state building part of the revolution has yet to come, but seeing video and photos of people celebrating throughout the country was inspiring. What started as a peaceful protest against an authoritarian regime was met with violent, murderous force (as authoritarian regimes often do). Over six months, the Libyan people fought against the regime, and with the aid of foreign governments and the international community, were able to turn the tide against Qaddafi.

This picture is quiet astounding. Taken last year at the Arab-African summit, we see Ben Ali of Tunisia, Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, Qaddafi of Libya, and Mubarak of Egypt. The only man still in charge is Saleh, and his control is tenuous at best.

False-Flag Black Metal

2011-08-21T23:54:00.003-05:00

A few days back, a Burzum track came up on a mix I had created a few years ago. The man behind the project is Varg Vikernes, a convicted murderer in Norway and a well known Neo-Nazi/white nationalist. Varg has played a prominent role in the racist tendency within Black Metal, and is a bit of a celebrity of sorts within that movement (Graeme has a great series of posts about NSBM which are worth your time if all this talk about Black Metal and its intersection white nationalism seems daunting). After hearing the Burzum track, I wondered what Norway’s most famous underground racist had to say about the recent right-wing terrorist attack? Did he support Anders Behring Breivik’s actions, or his ideological outlook?

Apparently Varg did comment, and it’s a doozy. Graeme gave me the heads up to a post by Metal Jew which states:

“Ever since hearing about the recent terrorist attack in Norway I have wondered about what Varg Vikernes's reaction would be. Well, wonder no longer: he has posted his thoughts in a post on his website entitled War in Europe: Part I - Cui bono?.

The answer to the question 'Cui Bono' is of course is the Jews!”

Surprise, surprise! The racist metalhead, who has positioned himself as a new voice for white nationalism in Europe, mixing paganism, self-determination, and tradition in equal parts, blames the Jews for the Oslo attack! Metal Jew goes on to echo something I had previously thought:

“What surprises me is the explicitness with which Vikernes regurgitates the most predictable elements of antisemitism (Jews invented Marxism, feminism, freemasonry, psychology etc etc). I never had any illusions about his beliefs but I did feel that at the very least he had more subtlety and originality in their expression (not that it makes them any better of course).”

Graeme rightfully pegged the idiot: “Of course he's a dull neo-Nazi! This much has always been obvious! The guy made a couple of interesting records, but he's never said or written anything that's indicated that there's an intellect behind the music.”

So there is Varg’s take, yet another “false flag” conspiracy theorist to add to the pile.

On this note, I recently watched a documentary on the Norwegian Black Metal scene that has some extensive interviews with Varg about murdering his band mate and other notorious Norwegian BM events. Watch the whole thing bellow.

Why Michele Bachmann is a Threat

2011-08-08T19:14:00.008-05:00

The New Yorker has an excellent piece on Michele Bachmann and the foundation to her beliefs. It is necessary reading for both liberals and conservatives alike. For those of us who have followed Michele's rise from a Tea Party darling to possible Republican Presidential nominee, her litany of bizarre and dangerous beliefs comes as no surprise. What I did learn from the New Yorker piece was the effect "How Should we Then Live?" had on Bachmann's ideology. This documentary series created by right-wing theologian Francis Schaeffer, argues that American civilization began its decline not with FDR and the Great Society programs, but in the Renaissance! The birth of Humanism and the move away from a Biblical-centered life (concepts that have produced the very basis of American government and Capitalism I might add) was at the heart of America's downfall, and the human-centered mindset it fashioned is what needs to be rejected.

Schaeffer's series also produced an influential book in Christian conservative circles under the same name. In 1981 Schaeffer published The Christian Manifesto. In the text, Schaeffer argued that “the humanistic, material-energy, chance world view intolerantly uses every form of force at its disposal to make its world view the exclusive one” (p.113) and sees liberal organizations like the ACLU as acting as “the arm of the humanist consensus” to override majority Christian communities (p.69). Put through this ideological lens, Michele Bachmann’s conspiratorial claims about re-education camps and anti-American congressmen become clearer.

I encourage everyone to watch the series. This trend in American conservatism, that overtly rejects the very foundation of secular and liberal governance, should be feared and combated. It is one thing to believe the US government should spend less money and balance its budget; it is another to adhere to the theocratic and conspiratorial mindset that Bachmann has trumpeted.

Alex Jones: Norway Attacks were "False Flag" Operations

2011-08-03T20:01:00.001-05:00

Alex Jones, one of America's biggest idiots and loudmouths, apparently does not believe a single act of terrorism is ever perpetrated by an individual not associated with the "New World Order" or "Zionists." It will be interesting to see how the left-wing portions of his fan base that were attracted to his conspiratorial views after 9/11 concerning George W. Bush and the War on Terror respond to what was clearly a right-wing terrorist attack by Anders Behring Breivik.

One conclusion can be drawn (and it is one I drew a long time ago): Alex Jones is still a laughable idiot of astronomical proportions.

Mubarak Goes on Trial

2011-08-03T15:24:00.000-05:00

It is hard to believe that this day actually came.

From the Music Blog

2011-07-07T20:18:00.003-05:00

Here are some recent posts from the music blog, "Some Lost, Some Found."

The awesome Chris Isaak Baja Sessions, playing sun-drenched California Rock'n'Roll.

Spacey hip-hop from London-come-LA's Steve Spacek.

Shoegaze from the early 90s with Baltimore's The Ropers.

Psychedelic Folk from the 90s underground with Damien Dream.

Celebrating Hidden Shoal Records 5th anniversary.

Garage rock from the deserts of So-Cal with the Sexies.

New French Wave from the 80s with Indochine.

South American power-pop with Clout.

The start of our "Summer with Gorky's" series, has the origins of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci with Ffa Coffi Pawb.

The new single from Best Coast.

Canada's neo-folksters Vallermakers.

Edinburgh's awesome post-rock stars, Vasquez.

And the next installment in the "Summer of Gorky's" series has some of their early singles and videos.

New Joshua Muravchik

2011-06-25T16:52:00.003-05:00

Some of Muravchik's recent posts over at World Affairs magazine.
- Libya: The Next Great Betrayal?
- Make Libya a No-Fly Zone
- US 'Intelligence': Blinded by Ideology
- Egypt and the Way of Revolutions

Joshua was interviewed on Jim Glassman's Ideas in Action program, talking about Egypt and their revolution. He also had a piece at NRO on Obama's ME policy.

Trashing Dictatorship in Cairo at the Jewish Review of Books.

Obama's Trap in Syria, from a few months back at the Daily Beast.

And one from the vaults: the interview he had with Alan Johnson at Democratiya from a few years back.

The Republican turn towards isolationism?

2011-06-21T16:34:00.001-05:00

A few good pieces about the level of support for isolationist or “fortress America” policies in the Republican Party and the conservative base.

Douthat describes how he ended up in Rand Paul’s camp.

Ron Radosh’s excellent piece on why this urge towards isolationism must be rejected.

And Jonathan Chait on why this whole “anti-interventionist swing” is hype.

Why Conan is the best

2011-06-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

Too bad the commencement speech at my graduation wasn't this good.

Zabibah and the King, by Saddam Hussein

2011-06-12T19:48:00.002-05:00

I have enjoyed Sacha Baron Cohen's films, and something about this one I find worthwhile and fascinating. Who doesn't want to see the words crazed penned by Saddam Hussein on the movie screen?

Postmodernism and the Death of Solidarity

2011-06-11T10:59:00.007-05:00

Spending any amount of time at a university will remind one of the influences postmodernism and poststructuralism have had on academia and large swaths of the left-leaning political class. Although it often isn’t stated overtly in the public debate, the conflict between factions on the left has a great deal to do with what the various ideological perspectives preoccupy themselves with, as well as their radically different understandings of history and the historical process.

I recently read two books that address this debate, both of which arguing against the postmodern approach, that I have found worthwhile for anyone interested in this debate. In Defense if History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda is a collection of essays by Marxists challenging the postmodern fad within academic circles on the left. Michael Merube’s The Left at War also addresses the hostility between the postmodern left and the Marxists and liberals they oppose, and provides an excellent addendum to this discussion.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, a contributer to In Defense of History, provides a telling set of criticisms on the negative affect postmodernism has had on the left. It is a large field of thought, but there are recurring themes and trends that distinguish the postmodern perspective from other fields of study. Ellen rightly recognizes that postmodernists are not concerned with epochs throughout history or the material conditions that affect change, but are preoccupied with discourse, culture, and language (1997, p.5). “Society is not simply like language” according to postmodernism, “It is language” (ibid). With this as its foundation, it is not surprising that postmodernists (a movement that has had its greatest impact within academia and the Uni minded) spend a ridiculous amount of time and ink on discussing the media and language ques.

Wood rightly connects the failures of leftist social movements in the 1960s to the development of postmodernism as an ideological movement. Long before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the failure of socialism, the left in the West began to recognize that the working classes within their societies were not lining up behind a hefty swath of the left’s larger political program. The vanguard of intellectuals that was to lead the working class to a new era of cooperation and prosperity did not possess the leadership and/or ideas to captivate the imaginations of the masses. The more astute among the left acknowledged that this was not the result of “false consciousness” on the part of the working class, but the reality that intellectual leftist movements did not address (or only nominally addressed) the real, and tangible concerns of the working people they claimed to champion. Others saw the unwillingness of the working class to support their radical programs as a betrayal, and began to remove this key force for change within Marxist ideology from the historical process. Postmodernism has always been strongest within the halls of the university, and it is easy to see why. When radical student activists in the 60s failed to achieve their intended goals, they retreated to the world they were most familiar with. Thus, defeatism is the fundamental principle of the movement (ibid, p.7). Resenting the working classes that had spurned them, the intellectual movement that would later be called postmodernism replaced the working class as the driving force for historical change with themselves: “Postmodernism has simply taken to the ultimate, and often absurd, extreme the familiar attempt to replace these hegemonized agencies with new ones, by situating intellectual practice at the center of the social universe and promoting intellectuals – or, more particularly, academics – to the vanguard of historical agency” (ibid, p.9).

Postmodern preoccupations with the media are a result of its rejection of any totalizing theory of history or meta-narratives that can explain action and change across time and culture. This is perhaps the most important conflict I have with postmodernism, and the root of the relativist perspective championed (both deliberately and unintentionally) within this virulent strand of thought.

Convoluted academic prose became the norm, as the desire or intent to reach an audience beyond the university walls was diminished or surrendered. With the intellectual academic as king, competition for influence was self-contained within an ever smaller community. Thus, jargon heavy prose became the desired mode of communication for the field, with ever increasingly areas of minutia as the focus of academic research. Not all of academia felt at home with this approach; the editor of Philosophy and Literature (an academic journal), started the annual Bad Writing Contest. In 1999, the prize was awarded to Judith Butler, an American feminist academic that is apparently well respected in her field of research for the following bit:

“The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power” (reprinted in Nick Cohen’s book What’s Left? p.100).

Denis Dutton, the editor of Philosophy and Literature perceptively acknowledged that the point of Butler’s piece was not to communicate, but to beat into the readers head that “they are in the presence of a great and deep mind.”

To be continued in part 2.

From the Music Blog

2011-06-02T00:50:00.004-05:00

A few posts at the music blog:

Acoustic jams from Sinforiano Diaz.

Awesome emocore from Algernon Cadwallader.

Italo Disco with Wish Key.

The Storm at the Gates Riff Rawk cassette.

Baltimore's Swimmers Ear, rocking that shit.

UK electronic Boxcutter, on their new awesome record.

And yes, Adele with her great new single.

An American City, Still Alive

2011-06-02T00:09:00.004-05:00

Grand Rapids, Michigan was named one of America's "dying cities" by some rag, and the people responded with this video. Roger Ebert says it is the best music video ever made, and he may be right.

p.s. This is my 1,000th post. Seems fitting.

Elsewhere, again

2011-05-30T20:08:00.003-05:00

(the piece to the left is an awesome pick by Kellie)

Shiraz Socialist - Defend the SWP! (nope, not a joke)

Snoopy - Oklahoma Republican vs. National Science Foundation.

Poumista - The day Orwell was shot.

Jams - an auction worth watching.

Graeme - the rot at the center of Canadian politics.

Johnny Guitar - same as it ever was.

Elsewhere

2011-05-30T16:44:00.002-05:00

Bob's memorial to Gil Scott Heron.

Anti-German Translation on National Anarchists in Manchester. More about National Anarchism here.

Marko - Angels can tell the difference.

Plump - Negotiating skills.

Adam Holland on Obama, the Jews and Boilerplate answers.

Michael Totten - Yea, we won in Iraq. Also check out Michael's interview with Hoover's Uncommon Knowledge about his new book.

Teachers murdered in Afghanistan, and why it should outrage the international left.

Martin - Taliban tactics in the Tower Hamlets.

Modernity - Julian Assange and the Far Right.

Lauryn Oates on Khan Mohammad and the courage of Afghan teachers.

Issues facing teachers in Afghanistan

2011-05-22T19:51:00.010-05:00

International Teacher Cooperation, a group I am involved with, is hosting an event at UC Davis in California next week. Rona Popal, the Executive Director of the Afghan Coalition, will speak about issues facing education, teachers, and students in Afghanistan. Rona is an Afghan whose organization is well respected in the greater Bay Area for its efforts to help Afghan immigrants to the region as well as provide information to the community about the state building process in Afghanistan.

If you are in the greater Sacramento/ Bay Area, add this event to your calendar.

June 1^st, 2011 (Wednesday)
Rona Popal (Afghan Coalition)
202 Wellman, UC Davis Campus (Located next to the Student Union)
6pm-8pm

ABC News has a piece about Rona’s efforts.

International Teacher Cooperation is currently raising funds for Canadian Women for Afghan Women to provide half a year’s salary to an Afghan teacher. We will be collecting donations to support the organization and teachers in the country at the event.

LaRouche/ Ron Paul Heartbreak

2011-05-18T18:18:00.004-05:00

Both men are batshit, and share many conspiratorial views, but I guess LaRouche didn't care much for Paul's recent comments about Medicare and Social Security being "unconstitutional." From LaRouche's PAC:

Lyndon LaRouche responded that "Ron Paul is off the wall on this one. I have never trusted him and now my lack of trust in him is confirmed. He says some useful things, but there are too many screw ball angles.

"He is talking like an idiot. He does not know the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. He is either illiterate or he is drinking the wrong juice these days."

The fact that I still LaRouche followers out in full force at protests and events (they were at the Sacramento Capitol CTA protest last week and at a random event i attended in Sebastopol) should scare Americans. Recently, they picked up some media attention for the Obama=Hitler images we saw at health care debates, but LaRouche's group has a long history of bizarre and occasionally violent extremism (check out Dennis Tourish's book on political cults for a great history).

Norms and Humanitarian Intervention

2011-03-28T18:11:00.003-05:00

Piggybacking on my previous post on intervention as a norm within our international society is a piece I missed by Creon Critic, providing more detail into the philosophical and legal framework within humanitarian intervention. Creon also discusses certainty and doubt over Libya at his own blog. Both are well worth your time.

Evolving Norms in Intervention and State-building

2011-03-23T14:25:00.004-05:00

With the international intervention in Libya, there has been a renewed debate over what constitutes a necessary and moral intervention into a state’s affairs within the chattering political classes and individuals interested in this concept of international society and the moral complications related to state sovereignty. What is often missing from the debates surrounding foreign interference is a discussion on the way the conception of international responsibility has evolved since WWII from a pluralist conception of state citizenship to a solidarist one generally advanced by human rights proponents. The following is a chapter from a working paper I wrote a year ago providing a brief history of this change in norms related to foreign involvement in a local’s affairs. Since the focus of the paper was on UN and US state-building in the last decade, the chapter needs some additional content related to the way colonialism and anti-imperialist criticisms of solidarist arguments relate to sovereignty. Additionally, the portions related to the US 2002 National Security Strategy fail to address the lingering realist and national-interest model embedded in American foreign policy and paint an overly optimistic outlook on US strategy, so take it as you will.

Before these state-building cases can be examined, a brief history of the normative changes surrounding international society, sovereignty, and state-building is essential in comprehending the normative dimension of these projects. An international society exists “when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another” (Bull, 1977, p.13). Within this conception of international society, there are two divergent standards. Firstly, the Pluralist tradition allows for various classifications of “good” governance and modes of social operation (Wheeler, 2000, p.27). In principle, the international society should be governed by a respect for state sovereignty (Clark, 2007, p.153). Secondly, solidarists argue that individuals are the beneficiaries of rights, not states (Wheeler, 2000, p.11). States in this international society have a “moral responsibility to protect their citizens,” and a state may lose the right to govern in this society if it infringes on the rights of its citizens, resulting in the “use of force to stop the oppression” (Wheeler, 2000, p.12-13). Intervention on behalf of an endangered people is thus a “moral duty” of members of the international society (Wheeler, 2000, p.13). These competing conceptions of society are at the heart of the debate surrounding international society and state-building.

Following the Rwandan genocide and the war in Bosnia, then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali released a supplement to his paper titled “Agenda for Peace.” The supplement recognized that a new breed of interstate conflicts had arisen, as these conflicts were “accompanied by the collapse of state institutions, especially the police and judiciary,” requiring international intervention to expand beyond traditional military and humanitarian tasks to include the “promotion of national reconciliation and the re-establishment of effective government” (Chesterman, 2007, p.5; UN, 1995, p.5). In light of this, the Secretary-General continued to maintain that the UN should approach nation building projects that impose state institutions on foreign peoples with caution (UN, 1995, p.13-14). Despite Boutros-Ghali’s warning, the UN engaged in a slew of state-building exercises in subsequent years, taking significant control over the construction of institutions in the host state, culminating in the UN missions in Kosovo and East Timor, where the transitional administrations where given effective sovereignty (Chesterman, 2007, p.5).

The prevailing thoughts on sovereignty following the end of European colonialism were that equality between states and people in the international system was necessary in order to bring about a more just international system than preceding one. The equality established in this new system demanded “that persons be treated equally insofar as they [were] regarded as equals” (Bain, 2003, p.61), and this understanding of impartiality provided the norms and general framework for the relations between states in the post-colonial era. This conception of liberty entails the right of an entity to be treated as an equal by others, regardless of their capacity. Stuart Mill’s position that an individual “cannot rightfully be compelled” to act in a certain manner, even if it is supposed to make them happier and more secure, was the outlook employed on the international level, granting all states the right to govern their societies as they saw fit (Mill, 1859, p.13).

This was a major shift in norms away from the previous colonial era. Colonialism was not simply a push for resources; it was conceived as “a divine plan for the salvation of the pagans, as a secular mandate to ‘civilize’ the ‘barbarians’ or ‘savages,’ as a ‘white man’s burden’ that he is privileged to carry” (Osterhammel, 1995, p.16). These influential states believed that they were responsible for civilizing “less advanced” people and were moreover “convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule” (Osterhammel, 1995, p.17). This perceived superiority of advanced Western states was not regulated to proponents of overt colonial endeavours. Karl Marx argued that Great Britain had a responsibility to its Indian subjects to bestow upon them the foundations of Western society while annihilating “old Asiatic society” (Marx, 1853, p.132). P.H. Kerr held that superior civilizations had a duty to administer those who did not possess the personal ability to govern themselves effectively “until they are able to take their place alongside more advanced peoples” (Kerr, 1916, p.149; Bain, 2003, p.61). While Marx, Kerr, and the colonizers before them were informed by separate ideologies and political objectives, they shared a common conception of an international society: advanced nations had a duty to civilize and modernize “less advanced” civilizations.

It was not until the post-colonial era that the principles of unconditional equality extended to all people and states. The era was articulated in the United Nations Assembly Resolutions 421 (V) and 545 (VI), affirming the importance of self determination for all people and nations, bestowing upon them the right to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development” (UN General Assembly, 1950). Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514 (XV) further illustrates the governing principles that would direct international society through the pos-colonial years. This declaration stated that the “denial of independence precluded the full enjoyment of fundamental human rights and that colonialism itself, no matter how Enlightened” (Bain, 2003, p.66). An international hierarchy based on a state’s level of development was no longer applicable to the relations between states, and thus trusteeship was no longer considered a viable policy alternative. As Kwame Nkrumah argued, trusteeship was nothing more than a policy of “deception, hypocrisy, oppression, and exploitation” with a more acceptable moniker (Nkrumah, 1962, p.35). Since this society stressed coexistence as its governing principle, this period can accurately be described as Pluralist (Buzan, 2004, p.142).

With the end of the Cold War, rhetoric and norms concerning governance began to visibly change. At the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1990, a host of states passed the ‘Charter of Paris on Europe,’ which unequivocally affirmed that democracy was the only form of acceptable government in modern society (CSCE, 1990, p.3). State failure in Somalia and genocide in Rwanda demonstrated a significant quandary with an international system that bestowed the same rights on all states, and an “alternative ethics to independence” began to develop (Bain, 2003, p.68). Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the UN, attempted to reinterpret and challenge non-interference in a sovereign state’s affairs as a guiding principle of the UN. He wrote, “The Charter protects the sovereignty of peoples. It was never meant as a licence for governments to trample on human rights and human dignity. Sovereignty implies responsibility, not just power” (Annan, 1999, p.3). While the UN Charter defended the right of states to govern without fear of foreign intervention into their domestic politics, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bestowed upon each individual the right to liberty and freedom, and the freedom from slavery and the right to “an effective remedy” to a violation of said individual’s fundamental rights (UN UDHR, 1948, Art.3,8). Even though the UN was not given explicit provisions to enforce these rights (Bull, 1977, p.83-84), scholars like Hersch Lauterpacht alleged that the inclusion of individual rights into an international governing body was a major step in the solidarist’s direction, with the potential for the enforcement of these norms possible through extended interpretation (Lauterpacht, 1975, p.166-167). Martin Wright would later argue that it was individual men, not states, that were members of the international society, justifying intervention into the affairs of others as a “duty of fellow-feeling and cooperation” (Wright, 1991, p.215,116). While many scholars and statesmen continued to adhere to the pluralist conception of international society, there was a significant shift towards solidarist norms. Morton Halperin stated that constitutional, democratic government upholding the basic standards of human rights had become the norm that now governed the society of states (Halperin, 1993, p.105). As these new norms took root, they established new ways in which states could intervene into foreign state affairs “to modify the content of other norms” (Flynn and Farrell, 1999, p.523).

In President George W. Bush’s 2002 National Security Strategy, it unequivocally asserted that “freedom is the non-negotiable demand of human dignity” (NSS, 2002, p.vi) and that the United States must use its power to advance a global policy that “favours freedom” (Ibif, p.25). The document exemplified a move in American foreign policy towards conditional relations between states, arguing that “accountability must be expected and required” (Ibid, p.vi). These arguments, coming both from academics, theorists, and policymakers, reflect a change in U.S. perceptions towards an outlook closer to Solidarism than Pluralism (Press-Barnathan, 2004, p.208). By placing an emphasis on the rights of individuals over states, it allows the U.S. to “exercise power in such a way that it remedies the imperfect moral and material state in which a portion of the human family subsists” (Bain, 2003, p.65). Interference with a state’s domestic affairs was thus justified on the grounds that it will improve the lives of citizens in the troubled state while furthering U.S. interests in maintaining international stability (Dworkin, 1971, p.108; Krauthammer, 2004, p.15).

The UN carried out two of the most ambitious state-building projects in 1999, first in Kosovo (UNMIK) and then in East Timor (UNTAET), with both projects appearing to signal the “demise of the ethics of post-colonial international society and along with it the principle of universal equality” (Bain, 2003, p.69) These nation-building projects, often described as neo-trusteeships, placed a large degree of authority in the hands of UN officials, providing them with a mandate to implement the mission’s agenda that far exceeded previous UN state-building missions after the Cold War (Caplan, 2005, p.19). In both cases, the UN created transitional authorities that were autonomous from local control, granting itself the “powers of the state on a temporary basis” (Chesterman, 2004, pg. 5). Conditional support and recognition made their way into formal policies on aid and reconstruction efforts as well. In recent years, the international development community began to see aid as a tool to transforming conflict dynamics by withholding support and resources until improved governance was demonstrated by the recipient (UNDG, 2004, p.16). The establishment of “good government” in the state-building process became the norm (Grindle, 2002, p.28).

Sources:

Annan, Kofi. (1999) “Two Concepts of Sovereignty.” The Economist, September 18^th. Available at: http://www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/stories/articleFull.asp?TID=33&Type=Article

Bain, William. (2003). “The Political Theory of Trusteeship and the Twilight of International Equality.” International Relations, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 59-77.

Bull, Hedley. (1977). The Anarchical Society. London: Macmillan Press LTD.

Buzan, Barry (2004). From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Caplan, Richard (2005). International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clark, Ian. (2007). International Legitimacy and World Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chesterman, Simon. (2007) “Ownership in Theory and in Practice: Transfer of Authority in UN Statebuilding Operations.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 3 — 26

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). (1990). Charter of Paris for a New Europe, 21 November. Paris.

Dworkin, Gerald. (1971). “Paternalism” in Richard A. Wasserstrom (ed.) Morality and the Law. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company Inc.

Flynn, Gregory and Farrell, Henry (1999). “Piecing Together the Democratic Peace: The CSCE, Norms, and the “Construction of Security in Post-Cold War Europe.” International Organization, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 505-535.

Grindle, Merilee. (2002). “Good Enough Governance: Poverty Reduction and Reform in Developing Countries.” Governance and Social Development Resource Centre. Available at: http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/HD32.pdf

Halperin, M. H. (1993). ‘Guaranteeing Democracy’, Foreign Policy, No. 91, pp.105-122.

Kerr, P.H. (1916). “Political Relations Between Advanced and Backward Peoples” in An Introduction to the Study of International Relations. London, Macmillan.

Krauthammer, Charles. (2004). “Democratic Realism.” The American Enterprise Institute Press, Washington D.C.

Lauterpacht, Hersch. (1975). "International Law after the Second World War", in Elihu Lauterpacht (ed.), International Law Being the Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht (Vol. 2), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 159-170.

Marx, Karl. (1853). Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization in Shlomo Avineri (ed.). Garden City, Anchor Books, 1969.

Mill, John Stuart. (1859). On Liberty (Library of Liberal Arts Edition, 1956). New York: MacMillan.

National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS). (2002). Office of the President of the United States of America.

Nkrumah, Kwame. (1962). Towards Colonial Freedom: Africa and the Struggle Against World Imperialism. London: Heinemann.

Osterhammel, Jurgen (1995). Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Markus Weiner Publishers.

Press-Barnathan, Galia. (2004). “The War against Iraq and International Order: From Bull to Bush.” International Studies Review, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 195-212.

United Nations. (1995). Supplement to an Agenda for Peace, Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, UN Doc A/50/60-S/1995/1. Accessed at: http://www.un.org/Docs/SG/agsupp.html

United Nations Development Group (UNDG), World Bank and United Nations Development Programme. (2004). Practical guide to multilateral needs assessments in post-conflict situations (Washington DC: UN, Aug. 2004). Available at: http://www.unddr.org/tool_docs/PCNA.Tool_PostConflict_Needs_Assessment.pdf

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN UDHR). (1948). Available at: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

Wheeler, Nicholas. (2000). Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wright, Martin. (1991).“Western Values in International Relations.” In International Theory: The three Traditions (edited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter). Leicester: Leicester University Press.

Hitch on 60 Minutes

2011-03-11T11:36:00.001-06:00

From March 6th, 2011.

On the Revolution

2011-03-10T23:30:00.005-06:00

Shame to say, but a post has been long overdue. The real life has demanded my attention as of late, and so the blogging took a hit. The last post was just a few days after the Egyptian rebellion began, and the revolution has developed significantly from there. Brighter minds kept working however, and here are some points I would have liked to make.

Terry Glavin's work has been exemplary, and here are his last three pieces on Lybia. The last one one the "realism" of Michael Scheuer is well worth your time.

I have seen some of my old comrades recognize the fault in supporting isolationist, reactionary elements now that the people in the Arab world have demanded liberty (well, not everyone). Adam Holland's piece on Cynthia McKinney's overt support for Ghadafi, the onetime presidential candidate for the Green Party (a group a once worked for), should end her "career." Like I said, should.

It goes without saying that you should be reading Bob's.

Shiraz Socialist talks a bit about Qaddafi's LSE friends.

I holy endorse Marko's piece at the Henry Jackson Society, "Better hostile democracies than friendly dictatorships." Read it.

Michael Totten has a new book out, that is timely at this point in time. I have a copy on my desk, and look forward to getting into it once life has calmed down.

More of this later.

On the Egyptian Revolution

2011-01-30T22:43:00.004-06:00

More on this later, but Marko’s post deserves all the attention it can get.

"Rather than being paralysed by fear, we should anticipate what the democratic transformation in Egypt could mean. It could mean that a regime that has been generating Islamist terrorism will be replaced by one that will act as a catalyst for democratic transformation throughout the Arab world and the Middle East. It could mean a decisive shift in the balance between democracy and dictatorship within the Muslim world globally. Of course, this is not pre-ordained, and things could go very badly wrong in Egypt. But let us in the West keep our eyes on the prize, and do everything we can to assist our Egyptian sisters and brothers in their struggle against tyranny. Obama and Cameron should begin by telling Mubarak that it’s time to go.

Let the tyrants tremble – victory to the Egyptian revolution!"

I agree completely. If the Muslim Brotherhood finds a way to leach of this popular uprising, then we will fight them as we would any theocratic organization or state. But the Egyptian people deserve the opportunity to build a secular and free society, and I support their efforts.

Left/Right Alliance and the Propagandist

2011-01-07T21:53:00.011-06:00

Long ago, I intended to comment on left/right alliances and the limits of said groupings in response to a post at Bob's that a was a response to Waterloo Sunset’s piece about Propagandist Magazine. Both the posts, as well as the comments that follow (Terry Glavin’s defense of the project being most notable) are worth your time if you have not already done so. However, I have not given my rational for working with the website, if only nominally. Due to a few recent events, both personal and blog related, I feel the need to sum up a few of my thoughts on this issue.

WS brought to my attention an event advertised at the Propagandist that was organized by the Jewish Defense League that I must have missed a few months prior. I was surprised to see an event for a group that I consider to have engaged in terrorist activity, but also a reactionary anti-modernist Kahanist organization that is opposed to the secular and pluralistic society I support advertised at the site. I need not list the litany of criminal offenses done by the organization, but their violent activity is surely not a thing of the past, nor is it inconsequential to larger events. In 1994, a JDL member named Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 innocent Palestinians while they were praying in the city of Hebron. The JDL did not disown the man or his actions, but claimed "Goldstein took a preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews."

In sum, the JDL is no friend of liberals and secularists (or like minded conservatives for that matter). They are a group that has received condemnation from Jewish organizations around the globe. I recognize that I don’t know much about the group’s recent exploits; perhaps the Canadian JDL has renounced violence. But I do find it troubling that an event for the group was advertised at the site.

I have posted two pieces with Propagandist Magazine, one on the trend towards faith based assumptions in our political discourse, and another on the ridiculous success Tom Tancredo had running for Governor in Colorado on an openly theocratic party ticket (which was also posted at Harry’s Place, and reminded me how bizarre the comments section at the site had become). I was more than happy to be a left-leaning commenter on the site (and still do) for a number of reasons. In the past, I have been part of other multi-author projects where I disagreed vehemently with other contributors to the site. Nearly four years ago I wrote a few pieces for short lived site discussing aspects of the Euston Manifesto. I found my blogging feet writing for Indymedia Watch, and wound up getting to know a number of folks I am still in contact with today. I wrote pieces for Neoconstant, a neoconservative centered website. That project ended at an opportune moment, as I recognized I could not continue down the hole with Weekly Standard types and the editor wound up embracing more traditional paleoconservative positions. I knew that Propagandist Magazine was more “conservative” than my liking from the get go, but the fact that it included writers I greatly respected like Terry Glavin, Lauryn Oats, Eamonn McDonagh, and Ben Cohen made me see that this was a project worth getting behind.

In each one of these ventures, but especially the last two, I found myself rationalizing working with people that were in many ways opposed to the society I wanted to see develop. I knew we agreed on some key points, but there was a gorge between us on others.

Yet, I still think the Propagandist project is worth doing and engaging in. While I understand WS’s criticism of the linking policy and the tone, I have always seen the general tenor of the site to be highly tongue-in-cheek. While the issues covered on the site are not of the comedic variety, I got the sense that the bravado and machismo was a bit. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but my conversations with the editor have not dissuaded me from this belief.

And to be honest, I have always been more of a talker than a brawler when it came to political differences. I recognize that there are forces and groups that need to be fought until they surrender (fascists and theocrats come to mind). Yet, when it comes to debate among individuals that are disposed to deliberate, I find that a policy of time-consuming discussion to be the strategy best suited to turning individuals to your cause. I have met more than one young man who was pulled into a racist party or gang in their youth, and who was yanked out of it thanks to the efforts of an activist who recognized that they could change this person’s perspective. But to turn people to your cause, it requires that you act in their vicinity and not in some pure community that speaks only to itself.

Having said that, I don’t believe that working with Propagandist is akin to hanging out at Stormfront. A site linking to Hak Mao, Bob, and Internationalist Workers Tendency as well as shit like Defend Geert Wilders and Infidel Bloggers Alliance, is clearly not endorsing all of these websites' positions. But spending time with folks who are inclined to read the site may provide an opportunity to pull them toward positions I find bearable. I don’t have to like everyone on a blogroll or agree with every contributor writing for a communal website. I just need them to be the type of individual who is capable to change their point of view, and willing to agree when they are wrong on an issue and prepared to discuss larger points candidly.

Recognizing all of this, I would like to see some kind of comment made about the JDL issue.

More on this later. I encourage everyone to comment on this, as I would appreciate your input.

Here and There, and all about that internet

2011-01-02T21:49:00.002-06:00

It was a bit surprising to see that I had not updated the home blog in almost two months. Time flies fast when you are busy as hell. None-the-less, I have enjoyed reading a slew of pieces during that time, and here are a few of them worth checking out.

Adam Holland gets us started with an excellent piece on the racism of Pat Buchanan.

Bob has a piece on influential left-wing ideas that should have greater weight in our political debate. Sarah at Harry's Place has her list as well. Waterloo Sunset takes the meme in a new direction, and is worth a read as well.

Fat Man on a Keyboard has a fine piece in defense of Multiculturalism.

Marko defends himself against Davis Gibbs' characterization of his work in his new book "First Do No Harm," spawned from the debate at Modernity's on the subject.

Michael Totten has fine pieces worth reading on the conspiracy theories inherent in Assange's rhetoric and an interview with Giulio Meotti.

Martin has a piece on religious teachings and social justice.

In what has been a great year for pieces from Nick Cohen, here is his take on Mad Men.

Stephen Kizner, who believes human rights are just some western construct, gets a a reaming from Norm.

In what has been another great year of posts at Poumista, I give you another fine set of links that I spent far too much time reading over.

Terry Glavin has also been in top form, and I leave you with his post on Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president.

The Contentious Centrist ends another fine year, and her discussion with Bob about a One-State solution was especially interesting.

Shiraz Socialist has a fine piece addressing the aimlessness of modern left-leaning thought.

Propagandist Magazine has been welcoming enough to host two of my pieces this year, and the mag has been an enjoyable read even when I disagree. Here is to another fine year, and they could use a few bucks if you have any to spare.

Graeme has another fine piece in his series on Black Metal and the extreme right.

Hitchens on Obama's Foreign Policy

2010-11-11T18:24:00.002-06:00

Part 1 of 5.

On the election and theocrats

2010-11-06T22:35:00.004-05:00

I have a new piece up at Propagandist magazine on the terrifying level of support Tom Tancredo and the Constitution Party received in the recent election, and the way mainstream conservatives like Sarah Palin backed his campaign. Here is a taste:

"The fact that a candidate running on a party platform that includes such reactionary bile could receive the endorsement of major conservative leaders like Sarah Palin and a sizable percentage of the vote should distress those on both the left and the right. Palin and the Tea Party want to claim that they are fighting for a return to “conventional” American values; their willingness to side with a political party so vastly removed from the mainstream exposes both the cynical and ideological nature of these actors."

In Your Neck of the Woods - Part 1

2010-10-23T10:12:00.002-05:00

Here are some key posts from folks around the net. More to come.

Adam Holland addresses Glenn Greenwald's support for conspiracy theorists.

Kellie on the Afghan War and War on TV.

Anti-German Translation on the Anti-Zionism of fools.

Required reading at Bob's on the EDL.

Jeff Weintraub on what Saudis think of the Jews.

Harry's Place has the dummy's guide to Lambertism.

Marko likely picked up traffic to his site this week with his post on Angelina Jolie's Bosnian imbroglio.

Another great piece from Nick Cohen: Why Books are Our Last Great Hope.

Joshua Muravchik on Free Speech and the Slippery Slope.

Modernity on Toben, Zundel and Sizer.

Michael Totten on the Muslim Brotherhood's true face.

Martin on the Chilean Miners and Chilean history.

Hitchens vs. Hitchens, again

2010-10-16T22:07:00.000-05:00

Eli and Dan talk Terror

2010-10-16T09:32:00.001-05:00

Dan Drezner, who has an excellent blog at Foreign Policy Magazine, and the generally strong Eli Lake form the Washington Times talk terrorism, counter-insurgency, and pragmatism.

From the Vaults

2010-10-15T19:55:00.003-05:00

A poster used in the 1932 German election, which while being nearly 80 years old, needs not a single alteration.

Race-baiting this Political Season

2010-10-15T00:04:00.001-05:00

The revolving door ad from the Brush Sr. campaign...

...meets Sharron Angle’s new ad.

Penn on Conspiracies

2010-10-04T14:22:00.001-05:00

Related to my recent piece on conspiracy theories at Propagandist Magazine is a new episode of Penn Point.

More on Nation-Building

2010-09-30T12:54:00.002-05:00

Paul Miller has an good piece challenging the argument that based on Afghanistan and Somalia, nation-building is an impossible endeavor. He writes:

"Most armed interventions deployed to improve a failed state's government capabilities -- whether you call it nation building or something else -- do not have to contend with Somalian levels of anarchy. The United States and the United Nations have learned by watching the big failures (in Angola and Liberia as much as Somalia), and operate with a measure of greater sophistication. The track record has actually improved since the early 1990s. The failures have been big, public, and humiliating, but the United States and the United Nations have also racked up better outcomes in Namibia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, East Timor, Liberia (the second time around), Sierra Leone (which came back from the brink of failure), and possibly Burundi.

Few of those countries are fully rebuilt, modern, stable, liberal democracies. Most are not particularly nice places to live. But the international interventions changed their trajectories. They are better off now than they were at the nadir of their respective wars and failures. That makes a real difference in human lives and is usually good enough to secure whatever interests led us to intervene in the first place."

Check it out.

Outside the Whitman/Brown Debate at UC Davis

2010-09-28T20:49:00.011-05:00

The protesters outside the gubernatorial debate speak volumes about the level of enthusiasm party activists have for the two major candidates. The cheers and jeers were uninspired and tired. A few union personnel showed up, as well as a handful of students and Tea Party activists, but the crowd remained diminutive and subdued.

We did have this spirited yelling match between a Democratic activist and a Tea Party counterpart, complete with the always classic “go back to Russia” rejoinder.

Angry Democrat with Tea Party at Whitman/Brown debate from rolanddodds on Vimeo.

There were a handful of tea party activists supporting anti-immigration, American Independent Party candidate for governor, Chelene Nightingale. Loren Hanks, a Tea Party Republican, was also at the debate although he did not have a vocal contingency.

(Nightingale with Hanks)

I saw this flyer supporting Calros Alvarez, a Socialist candidate running for Governor behind one of the major media booths. Unfortunately for Carlos, this act of self-promotion didn't turn into more media coverage for his doomed campaign.

Then there was this guy, who mumbled incoherently about this and that.

Other than that, the protest was exactly what I anticipated and was trailed by the depressing debate that characterizes what’s wrong with California politics.

Over at Propagandist Magazine

2010-09-28T13:00:00.001-05:00

My first article for the Propagandist Magazine is up. I address the unfortunate turn towards the legitimization of feelings in the public debate, and its conspiratorial repercussions. Here is a snippet:

“The acceptance of conspiratorial reasoning in our public debate represents a larger problem that has regrettably become undeniable and inescapable. Conspiracies are nothing new; the first men sitting around their fire, terrified of the formidable world around them, devised explanations for this struggle not founded in empirically verifiable specifics. We may no longer be a society crouched around burning embers, praying for the ability to fend off the demons we have created, but we continue to accept and justify soft-headed answers based on unverifiable revelations or pious justifications for action.”

Some of your may know of Propagandist magazine from the debate over right/left alliances at Bob from Brockley’s place. While I haven’t commented publicly on this issue yet, I will likely address it in a future post here at this blog.

Tomorrow’s Debate

2010-09-27T21:10:00.001-05:00

I can’t tell you how little I care about the gubernatorial election between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. We have one woman who bought her way into the Republican nomination, and a ghost from the Democrat’s past. The fact that this is the best we as Californians can come up says more about us as a state than it does about these candidates and their supporters.

With that in mind, their first debate is tomorrow at my current university home, UC Davis. The school had a raffle for seats to the debate, and while I wasn’t chosen, I will be present to see the protesters the event brings out of the woodwork.

Eddie Marcon

2010-09-22T15:59:00.001-05:00

Another great Japanese band that crawled from the ashes of LSD March.

Elsewhere

2010-09-10T22:20:00.002-05:00

It's time for a good old blog roundup.

Bob's has been exceptionally excellent as of late. This post and the subsequent comments are required reading for all those interested in the "decent" left.

Dave Zeglen, writing at the Propagandist, has a fine piece on North Korean succession.

Marko has a great piece titled "Srebrenica deniers get their mucky paws on Rwanda"

Ahmari at Harry's Place has a piece on the blogger crackdown in Bahrain.

Omar Al-Nidawi from Iraq the Model did an interview on the Brian Lehrer Show on the troop draw down in Iraq.

Martin hits the Koran burning story right on the head with his piece "No book burning - but no excuse for violence."

Michael Totten talks to Jonathan Spyer about Iran.

Joshua Muravchik on the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks.

Required reading from Nick Cohen on radical Islam's fellow travelers.

Terry Glavin has been in top form lately. Check out his new short piece, "If There's A Hell, It Would Be Attending This Conference, For Eternity."

For more roundups, I endorse the following by Anti-German Translation and Poumista.

State-building in Iraq has Just Begun

2010-08-26T23:36:00.003-05:00

I was going to wait until Obama made his upcoming speech on the American removal of “combat troops” from Iraq, leaving only 50,000 support specialists in the country, until I posted a piece on Iraq and the future of the American mission there. I will likely comment on Obama’s statements next week, but I felt there was a number of other points concerning the state-building process that should be addressed on their own.

A lot has been made in American media circles and chattering classes of Fourth Army Brigade’s pullout from Iraq. Technically speaking, the U.S. has now removed all of its combat troops from the country, although this fact does not represent the reality of the situation or the strategic and social investment America maintains in the country. As Max Boot points out:

“Going forward, most remaining U.S. troops will not serve in "combat" but will be part of what the military calls "advise and assist brigades." The distinction is largely artificial, crafted to show that the promised American withdrawal is on schedule. Fifty thousand soldiers will retain substantial combat capacity whether they are designated as "advisers," "combatants" or "tourists." And some of them, especially in elite antiterrorism units, will continue to operate at the pointy end of the spear.”

There are still reasons to celebrate this feat, even if the “pullout” is largely emblematic. The Surge strategy did more than increase the number of troops in Iraq, but adopted a counter-insurgency strategy that reflected the need to put Iraqi community protection at the forefront of the U.S. military efforts in the country. This put American soldiers at a much greater risk of being attacked and killed, but appeared to create a window of opportunity for Iraqi civil society to function. No longer having American troops patrolling Iraqi streets is a major accomplishment over the situation that existed at the end of 2006.

For Iraqis, the war is far from over. Yesterday’s attacks on numerous Iraqi civilian and military installations across the country demonstrates just how fractured and chaotic the country is, and reveals the ability of insurgent groups to execute coordinated attacks across the state. 265 Iraqi security personnel have been killed between June and August, with August being the deadliest month for these individuals in two years.

All this talk about military strategy and security also evades the pressing state-building concerns Iraq still faces. Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic Studies correctly argues that Iraq and the international community is at a critical stage in the construction of a free, safe, and just Iraq. The Bush administration did not take state-building seriously in the first 4 years of the occupation (one of my main arguments in my recently completed dissertation), resulting in unnecessary bloodshed, violence, and destruction. While the Bush administration stuck with its failed light footprint approach, Iraqis suffered as insurgent groups grew in strength, and basic living necessities became scarce for the average citizen.

Many Iraqis continue to live in completely unacceptable conditions. The Wall Street Journal reports that “almost a quarter of all Iraqis live in poverty, spending less than 2,500 dinars ($2.20) per day, and possibly more are unemployed, according to a report published by the Iraqi government and the United Nations this month. The report says almost 75% of households don't have access to the public sewage system, while 80% of the potable water supply is unfit to drink. Iraq is among the top five most corrupt countries in the world, according to a 2009 report by Transparency International.”

Basic security is a central concern, without it, subsequent state-building is meaningless. But simply providing security is not enough; the international community owes it to the Iraqi people to help them rebuild a functioning state.

Prominent war backers are crowing that the U.S. has won the battle in Iraq, and can now claim victory, but that further support would “encourage our new allies to remain entirely dependent on us.” There is truth in this assessment, but it misses the point. It was foolish to view the Iraqi state-building project in overly military terms in the years following 2003, and it’s foolish to see the country’s problems through that convoluted lens today. As Cordesman states, “Iraq still needs help and aid in every aspect of development, a continuing diplomatic and civil effort to help Iraqis overcome their sectarian and ethnic tensions. Defining exactly what level of US support is needed, and Iraq will accept, must wait on the creation of a new Iraqi government and giving that new government the time it needs to make such decisions. It is already clear, however, that Iraq needs immediate aid in developing its capability for governance, and economy.” It is of great moral importance that the U.S. continues to contribute to the furthering of their aims.

Iraq is at a crucial junction. I hope that with the Bush years finished and the disputes concerning the war’s justification and application behind us, the international community can stand behind Iraqis who are rebuilding their country. But they need our continued assistance, even as the media’s focus is directed elsewhere.

Recent Muravchik

2010-08-18T17:57:00.002-05:00

I have disagreed with Joshua Muravchik over his characterization of the Obama administration as “radical” as he does in his recent book, but he has posted a few great pieces as of late.

He has come out in support of gay marriage in a piece titled “Why Gay Marriage Just Makes Sense.” In it, he states:

“Decades ago, foreign policy, crime, and reverse discrimination were the issues that drove me from the Left, making me a “neoconservative.” Over decades, I came to see the wisdom of the views of traditional conservatives on other subjects like government spending, welfare, school prayer, and more. But as for opposition to gay marriage, I just don’t get it.”

He has another piece on what appears to be the inevitable bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, and one on problems with the UN.

Whereabouts

2010-08-17T23:08:00.003-05:00

As you can tell, things have been slow around here lately. This has probably been the longest this blog has gone without a post since its inception.

Spending the entire summer working on my graduate dissertation (a constructivist reading of American state-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you were interested) took a great deal of my mental state away from writing for the sheer joy of it. Even posting a roundup of other pieces by fellow bloggers seemed daunting.

I have started teaching back in California as of last week all while working on another graduate degree in education in the afternoons and evenings. Getting used to this new, busy schedule has been physically and mentally draining.

I do plan to continue writing here however, and I have a few pieces rummaging around my head away at this very moment. Expect regular posting to return next week or so.

Hitch vs. Haldane

2010-06-12T04:32:00.000-05:00

Part 1 of 10.

Iraq's Fragile Democracy

2010-06-09T06:26:00.001-05:00

On the Flotilla Incident

2010-06-06T10:47:00.004-05:00

You know that an incident involving Israel is bound to bring out the fringe unhinged types. Nick Cohen is certainly right on this point:

“Israel has become the main source of mystification for modern liberals. It twists them into ever-uglier contortions. It allows them to ignore secular tyranny and radical religious reaction and to revive with more relish than is seemly Europe's oldest anti-Semitic tropes while they are about it...

Where to begin? Perhaps with the inability of a large section of leftwing opinion and, indeed, isolationist conservative opinion to consider any foreign policy question without reverting within minutes to denunciations of a tiny country on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. So prevalent are the evasive manoeuvres that we need an update of Godwin's Law to describe them...From the far left to the Liberal Democrats, alleged progressives have Jews on the brain.”

I attended the first part of the protest against Israel here in Edinburgh yesterday, but left before the march began. It was exactly what I expected to find: a hodgepodge of socialist parties, Islamist groups, with a smattering of well intentioned liberals. Marchers called for a new Intifada, referred to Israel as an apartheid state, and a rogue nation. Having been around these things long enough, I recognize that this is all par for the course. What has become increasingly sad (or has been sad for a long time, and has been progressively more frustrating), is the simpleminded responses given to any Israeli action from colleagues and associates. Without considering exactly how international law works, or how global ethics are applied, my conversations inadvertently return to the same basic claims parroted by simpletons and do-gooders alike. I have to occasionally remind myself that the individuals I am debating have proved themselves to capable academics and intellectuals in their respective fields, and yet fail to apply the same reasoning to a minuscule nation’s policies in the Middle East.

Take the debate over the blockade of Gaza and its legality. Reuters recently published a piece demonstrating that the blockade is legal when one considers international norms, and that the interception of the boat in international waters to also be justified.

“On the basis that Hamas is the ruling entity of Gaza and Israel is in the midst of an armed struggle against that ruling entity, the blockade is legal," said Philip Roche, partner in the shipping disputes and risk management team with law firm Norton Rose.

Under the law of a blockade, intercepting a vessel could apply globally so long as a ship is bound for a "belligerent" territory, legal experts say.”

In the hours immediately following the death of nine “activists,” the web was a flurry with folks claiming Israel had attacked an unarmed group of aid activists who simply wanted to bring starving individuals in Gaza needed aid. The subsequent videos, showing exactly what kind of “activists” these folks were aboard the flotilla, tempered some of the indignation. The martyr videos, the slew of weapons aboard the ship, the calls for the Jews to “go back to Auschwitz,” this all put a damper on the argument made by useful idiots around the world that these “activists” were just humanitarians with the best intentions at heart. A little research demonstrates that the starving Gaza assertion is demonstrably wrong, and that a massive amount of aid is delivered to Gaza through Israel routinely.

But like all things regarding Israel, respective commentators and groups already have their narrative ready for press before these incidents even occur. Why let the truth get in the way?

Bob and the New Centrist have more to say on this subject, and have a slew of links worth checking out.

Post Election Blues

2010-05-13T11:14:00.005-05:00

Here's what's happening, in your neck of the woods.

Airforce Amazons - Five executions by the Iranian state.

Marko reminds us that the world isn't going to end with the Tories in power.

Michael Totten interviews Paul Berman, who has a new book coming out, The Flight of the Intellectuals.

Nick Cohen on our sycophancy to power.

Graeme on Music and Politics.

Terry Glavin - The U.S. to Afghanistan: 'We Will Not Abandon You.'

Joshua Muravchik says Obama isn't much of a centrist, and also talks about Miranda rights for terrorists.

Bob talks the British election.

The New Centrist has more on the Arizona immigration law.

Anti-German Translation - The anti-authoritarian left embraces the anti-Zionist right

And last but not least, a Hamas/Hezbollah supporter reveals what she really thinks at a David Horowitz lecture.

The McVeigh Tapes

2010-05-05T10:41:00.004-05:00

Rachel Maddow has a fine documentary on Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bombing, and domestic terrorism. Part 1 is here, the rest are well worth your time.

Brown, Arizona, and Immigration

2010-04-28T13:10:00.005-05:00

Gordon Brown is not suited for the modern political campaign. He recognizes this and anyone who watched the debates recognize this. But his recent gaff, and the appearances he made immediately after it, makes me think Brown doesn’t know what era he is trying to get elected in. From the Independent:

“Gordon Brown described himself as a "penitent sinner" today after personally apologizing to a voter he described as a "bigoted woman".

The Prime Minister had described Mrs Duffy as a "bigoted woman" in unguarded comments to an aide after she had tackled him on immigration, benefits, the national debt and tax policy.

Mr Brown was still wearing a radio microphone as he got into his car following a campaign visit in Rochdale.”

Amazingly stupid. Brown has stated that he had misheard the woman’s comments, resulting in him calling her a bigot. I don’t know if that is true or not, but it sounds like a feeble dodge to me, and exposes a major problem in how liberals and the left frame immigration.

The recent Arizona immigration ruling, that makes illegal immigration a State as well as federal crime, allows the police to ask for any individual’s identification papers if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is in the U.S. illegally. John Judis at the New Republic had this to say about it:

“The bill is ostensibly aimed at discouraging illegal immigrants from staying in Arizona, but it would also affect Arizona’s Latino citizens and probably, too, its Native Americans, who would be subject to arrest if they fail to allay a policeman’s suspicion that they are in the country illegally. Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony called the bill “the country's most retrogressive, mean-spirited and useless anti-immigrant law.” Mahoney also questioned whether Arizonans are “now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques.” That is, perhaps, rhetorical overkill, but there is a disturbing echo here of the worst periods in American and European history.”

The law is undoubtedly dim, and some unsavory individuals have contributed to its disposition. Police officers have enough on their hands dealing with serious crimes to now also act as Border Patrol agents. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it is going to be for Latin Americans living in Arizona, who will be asked to verify their citizenship or residency status anytime a police officer has “reasonable cause.” Some of the rhetoric coming from opponents of the bill, comparing it to fascism is outlandish, but this is surely not the proper legal, moral, or reasonable response to the Southwest’s immigration issues.

But there are negative consequences to the illegal immigration status quo that exists in the United States. It does cost American taxpayers a great deal to have the number of illegal residents we currently have. It also hurts existing blue collar workers, specifically by running their wages down and undermining many of the benefits achieved through decades of struggle.

When leftists, liberals, and Gordon Brown react to workers concerned with their (non-existent) jobs and wages by calling them racists and bigots, it does them no good politically or ideologically. There are benefits economically and culturally to large numbers of foreign born workers living in our societies. I completely reject the cultural arguments made by palecons like Pat Buchannan, who argue that the influx of foreigners is destroying American society. The American nation has always been in flux and is constantly changing demographically, but I do not find that the new batch of immigrants is changing the political or social character of the state detrimentally.

However, the extreme Arizona law is a result of a lack of action taken on immigration issues at the Federal level. When all concerns over illegal immigration are framed as the ravings of racist Klansmen, it does a disservice to rational debate. These more extreme rulings will continue to be supported by people who have faced the negative results of the current immigration system, and it requires internationalists and moderates to face these issues sincerely and pragmatically.

Update:

Concerning the Arizona law, both E.D. Kain and the New Centrist have some fine commentary worth reading.

Recent Hitchens

2010-04-20T11:54:00.000-05:00

On the National Prayer Day.

At NYU on Genocide.

Troops

2010-04-14T13:46:00.002-05:00

My personal life continues to take away time from blogging, so here is a classic Star Wars fan film.

Over at Some Lost, Some Found

2010-04-06T16:16:00.004-05:00

Over at the music blog, we have:

新宿ゲバルト - Awesome electronic Japanese jams.
George Duke - Great jazz/rock pianist.
Kim Jung Mi - Korean Songstress.
Lhasa de Sela - RIP
Tina Kaffeyah - kick ass hardcore.
Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti - classic Jazz greats.
Muhsinah - Lo/fi hip-hop.
Boxharp - Aussie awesomeness.
Dark Side of the Moon - 8Bit and awesome!