i remember reading an article back in 2000 that claimed to have evidence that there were enough seniors that cluelessly voted for george hw bush (and i mean out of genuine confusion) to swing the state and therefore the election.
i agree with kinsella: this is absurd. it's more like we never got rid of harper, really. but, how many voters (of a certain age) are there that aren't entirely sure which trudeau they're actually voting for?
canada's senile population is growing at a pretty fast rate. you have to wonder.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/warren-trudeau-ad-actually-a-load-of-hooey
Thursday, August 8, 2019
windsor, which is just south of detroit, is the southernmost city in canada, and has the second warmest average temperatures (behind victoria, bc). this weekend appears to be a concrete example of how those averages work out.
according to the forecast, i'm like 20 km south of where the jet stream is dipping to. so, i'm just south of the returning cold front and will just barely miss it. it's going to be much cooler this weekend in other major canadian cities, like toronto and ottawa and montreal. sudbury, which is about as far north as minneapolis, may even dip below ten degrees.
the nice graphic in the forecast doesn't measure the uncertainty, which i suspect is high. if that jet dips a little lower, we could be in for a nasty surprise; if it stays a little higher, those overnights could be better than forecast.
who programmed nice overnights on sunday and monday, though, instead of friday and saturday? da fuck? i guess if i get stuck on sunday...
there's not a drop of rain in the forecast, so i'm very tempted to have a very long weekend.
according to the forecast, i'm like 20 km south of where the jet stream is dipping to. so, i'm just south of the returning cold front and will just barely miss it. it's going to be much cooler this weekend in other major canadian cities, like toronto and ottawa and montreal. sudbury, which is about as far north as minneapolis, may even dip below ten degrees.
the nice graphic in the forecast doesn't measure the uncertainty, which i suspect is high. if that jet dips a little lower, we could be in for a nasty surprise; if it stays a little higher, those overnights could be better than forecast.
who programmed nice overnights on sunday and monday, though, instead of friday and saturday? da fuck? i guess if i get stuck on sunday...
there's not a drop of rain in the forecast, so i'm very tempted to have a very long weekend.
i am familiar with sam & leo and am not surprised to see them offer a more diplomatic, if essentially identical, analysis of the text.
no, really. it's the same reaction, almost point-by-point, just using far less flamboyant language. and, i swear i didn't read this, first.
https://socialistproject.ca/2017/01/b1353/
no, really. it's the same reaction, almost point-by-point, just using far less flamboyant language. and, i swear i didn't read this, first.
https://socialistproject.ca/2017/01/b1353/
so, an ideological leftist would actually argue in favour of automating the service sector as much as possible, insofar as we should have one at all, in order to emancipate the workers from that kind of dehumanizing and pointless labour.
nobody should spend their life behind a cash register, or locked away in a kitchen.
nobody should spend their life behind a cash register, or locked away in a kitchen.
i'm going to bring you back to the plot for a minute, though.
why, exactly, don't we have service sector unions?
well, to begin with, we actually do. in fact, they're some of the biggest unions still standing, it's just that they're a function of the employment environment. so, for example, the janitors and food workers at carleton university are absolutely unionized, and i watched them strike more than once at my lengthy stay there. but, you have to understand that this is somewhere where the higher paid workers - the profs - build relationships with the serving staff, and that's probably key to the whole thing.
why, though, don't we have more unionization in the service sector? why don't we have a fast food workers union the way we have an electrical workers union?
well, stop for a minute and ask yourself what socialism actually is. is it just a tactic to raise wages and living conditions? or is it a way to place property in common, under the argument that you can't provide for a proper accounting of labor?
i've made this point before: it doesn't make sense to collectivize the mcdonalds and redistribute the hamburgers. rather, it makes sense to smash the fast food industry altogether. and, that is your actual answer: socialists will broadly argue that we won't have fast food after the revolution, and there's consequently nothing of any tactical value in seizing worker control of the restaurants. now, the farms on the other hand...
so, don't misinterpret me. i'm not calling for a movement to organize the service sector; what i'm calling for is a movement to abolish the service sector.
one of the best things we can do at this point is provide alternate living arrangements. i've never been so desperate as to work a full time fast food job; i've always been lucky enough and resourceful enough to find a way out. but, if given the choice, i'd certainly rather live on a kibbutz. i would imagine that i'd be more interested in a way out than in a way up.
a real revolutionary movement should be able to see these kinds of industries as what they are, which is complete capitalist excess, and try to help people out of them. then, we can build an army with the people we emancipate.
but, i have a lot of art to do make, first.
and, i suspect i'll spend sunday morning quietly enjoying a coffee, if i show up there at all.
why, exactly, don't we have service sector unions?
well, to begin with, we actually do. in fact, they're some of the biggest unions still standing, it's just that they're a function of the employment environment. so, for example, the janitors and food workers at carleton university are absolutely unionized, and i watched them strike more than once at my lengthy stay there. but, you have to understand that this is somewhere where the higher paid workers - the profs - build relationships with the serving staff, and that's probably key to the whole thing.
why, though, don't we have more unionization in the service sector? why don't we have a fast food workers union the way we have an electrical workers union?
well, stop for a minute and ask yourself what socialism actually is. is it just a tactic to raise wages and living conditions? or is it a way to place property in common, under the argument that you can't provide for a proper accounting of labor?
i've made this point before: it doesn't make sense to collectivize the mcdonalds and redistribute the hamburgers. rather, it makes sense to smash the fast food industry altogether. and, that is your actual answer: socialists will broadly argue that we won't have fast food after the revolution, and there's consequently nothing of any tactical value in seizing worker control of the restaurants. now, the farms on the other hand...
so, don't misinterpret me. i'm not calling for a movement to organize the service sector; what i'm calling for is a movement to abolish the service sector.
one of the best things we can do at this point is provide alternate living arrangements. i've never been so desperate as to work a full time fast food job; i've always been lucky enough and resourceful enough to find a way out. but, if given the choice, i'd certainly rather live on a kibbutz. i would imagine that i'd be more interested in a way out than in a way up.
a real revolutionary movement should be able to see these kinds of industries as what they are, which is complete capitalist excess, and try to help people out of them. then, we can build an army with the people we emancipate.
but, i have a lot of art to do make, first.
and, i suspect i'll spend sunday morning quietly enjoying a coffee, if i show up there at all.
yeah, so i'm really not going to get into the specific examples about specific unions fighting for specific things; it's all very reactionary, politically, and none of the case studies provide for much of anything useful when it comes to building a real, revolutionary movement outside of the constraints of the workforce. it's just all about workers fighting for benefits within the context of existing capitalism. if anything, her interest appears to be in trying to take ideas from revolutionary politics and apply them to labour organizing, which is pretty much the definition of being a reactionary.
she basically just sets up this false dichotomy between mobilizing and organizing, then runs through a series of what are really rather frivolous discussions about it. it consequently has this kind of academic aesthetic to it, but it's too silly on it's face to be serious scholarship. i could spend a lot of time trying to disentangle the nonsense and word salads and working out and correcting the underlying logic, but it would essentially be a waste of time; at the end of the day, nobody is really going to disagree with observations such as that a successful revolutionary movement has to be run by workers itself (that is, in fact, a tautological statement.), or that the social revolution has to come first or much of anything else that she has to say. but, a lot of her analysis is ridiculous, in the sense that she assigns causes to personalities rather than systemic pressures. in one baffling section, she talks about how smashing the communists in the ctu was a great accomplishment, then fails to tie doing so to the loss of militancy in the union.
her discussion of power in the introduction was not meaningfully extrapolated upon, so my hypothesis was not borne out. there is not any kind of interesting theory of power explored within the text, at all.
rather, the text is a reformist analysis by what appears to be a textbook progressive/conservative. there's no meaningful socialist analysis in the text at all. there's almost no discussion of class. and, i think i'm mostly interested in observing how these people that organize under the socialist label can explain away wasting their time with such an obviously anti-revolutionary text.
but, i've been through this before, and i've learned my lesson: just because the group calls itself socialist doesn't mean that it actually is. but, i can wait and talk to people and judge them as individuals, like they should be judged.
it seems obvious that they picked this text to try and expand their movement. i can imagine that i'm going to walk into a group of people that have been organizing together for a long time and can't figure out how to attract new recruits to the cause, so they picked this up thinking it might help. are they doing too much mobilizing and not enough organizing? well, drop the attempt to redefine the terms for a second and just read that in english and tell me if you think it's coherent or not. in the end, a group like this needs to ask the question: why aren't any actual union members showing up at their meetings? why is it just a bunch of students and unemployed people? where are the rank and file?
and, the answer is as obvious as is possible: the decline of the revolutionary left is a function of the success of the union movement. somebody making $60,000+/yr with good benefits doesn't need to be helped out of their oppression by a benevolent arts student.
these groups need to focus on what is in front of them. america has a major housing problem, and i see it every time i go over there. social benefits are far too low. people don't have access to health care or education, and they're stuck working dead-end jobs that don't pay the rent. these are your foot soldiers for the revolution - not the union rank and file, who are too busy watching tv to organize or mobilize or, really, do anything else at all.
i might not even make it there. we're looking at a long weekend.
she basically just sets up this false dichotomy between mobilizing and organizing, then runs through a series of what are really rather frivolous discussions about it. it consequently has this kind of academic aesthetic to it, but it's too silly on it's face to be serious scholarship. i could spend a lot of time trying to disentangle the nonsense and word salads and working out and correcting the underlying logic, but it would essentially be a waste of time; at the end of the day, nobody is really going to disagree with observations such as that a successful revolutionary movement has to be run by workers itself (that is, in fact, a tautological statement.), or that the social revolution has to come first or much of anything else that she has to say. but, a lot of her analysis is ridiculous, in the sense that she assigns causes to personalities rather than systemic pressures. in one baffling section, she talks about how smashing the communists in the ctu was a great accomplishment, then fails to tie doing so to the loss of militancy in the union.
her discussion of power in the introduction was not meaningfully extrapolated upon, so my hypothesis was not borne out. there is not any kind of interesting theory of power explored within the text, at all.
rather, the text is a reformist analysis by what appears to be a textbook progressive/conservative. there's no meaningful socialist analysis in the text at all. there's almost no discussion of class. and, i think i'm mostly interested in observing how these people that organize under the socialist label can explain away wasting their time with such an obviously anti-revolutionary text.
but, i've been through this before, and i've learned my lesson: just because the group calls itself socialist doesn't mean that it actually is. but, i can wait and talk to people and judge them as individuals, like they should be judged.
it seems obvious that they picked this text to try and expand their movement. i can imagine that i'm going to walk into a group of people that have been organizing together for a long time and can't figure out how to attract new recruits to the cause, so they picked this up thinking it might help. are they doing too much mobilizing and not enough organizing? well, drop the attempt to redefine the terms for a second and just read that in english and tell me if you think it's coherent or not. in the end, a group like this needs to ask the question: why aren't any actual union members showing up at their meetings? why is it just a bunch of students and unemployed people? where are the rank and file?
and, the answer is as obvious as is possible: the decline of the revolutionary left is a function of the success of the union movement. somebody making $60,000+/yr with good benefits doesn't need to be helped out of their oppression by a benevolent arts student.
these groups need to focus on what is in front of them. america has a major housing problem, and i see it every time i go over there. social benefits are far too low. people don't have access to health care or education, and they're stuck working dead-end jobs that don't pay the rent. these are your foot soldiers for the revolution - not the union rank and file, who are too busy watching tv to organize or mobilize or, really, do anything else at all.
i might not even make it there. we're looking at a long weekend.
she seems keen on going after this "saul alinsky" character, instead of foucault. but, as far as i can tell, she's tearing down a strawman.
....because in all of my years of organizing and agitating out here on the radical left, i've actually never heard anybody talk about saul alinsky. we talk about foucault, we talk about chomsky, we talk about davis, we talk about the black panthers, etc, but alinsky is just not an influence, anywhere, at all. i've never read anything he's written, and i've never seen him cited by anybody except the news papers trying to smear obama with him.
maybe it's a problem of distance, a problem of degrees to the left; maybe saul alinsky is the opponent to the right of my opponents on the right and so i'm firewalled from him in a realistic sense, but, whatever it is, this is a discussion that isn't real to me.
i'm also beginning to realize that the text is being written almost solely from a reformist perspective, and that "progressive reformist" would not be considered an insult by the author, but rather an acceptable identity. see, i guess we'll have to see what the democratic socialists of america think about this, but maybe i'm operating on a misunderstanding: i would assume that people walking into a dsa meeting would consider themselves a good distance to the left of anybody calling themselves a progressive, and that they would consequently consider somebody identifying as a "progressive reformist" to be more of an opponent than an, at best, temporary ally. i could be wrong on that point. i guess we'll see the reaction.
....because in all of my years of organizing and agitating out here on the radical left, i've actually never heard anybody talk about saul alinsky. we talk about foucault, we talk about chomsky, we talk about davis, we talk about the black panthers, etc, but alinsky is just not an influence, anywhere, at all. i've never read anything he's written, and i've never seen him cited by anybody except the news papers trying to smear obama with him.
maybe it's a problem of distance, a problem of degrees to the left; maybe saul alinsky is the opponent to the right of my opponents on the right and so i'm firewalled from him in a realistic sense, but, whatever it is, this is a discussion that isn't real to me.
i'm also beginning to realize that the text is being written almost solely from a reformist perspective, and that "progressive reformist" would not be considered an insult by the author, but rather an acceptable identity. see, i guess we'll have to see what the democratic socialists of america think about this, but maybe i'm operating on a misunderstanding: i would assume that people walking into a dsa meeting would consider themselves a good distance to the left of anybody calling themselves a progressive, and that they would consequently consider somebody identifying as a "progressive reformist" to be more of an opponent than an, at best, temporary ally. i could be wrong on that point. i guess we'll see the reaction.
"When the structure is the workplace, the official leader of that structure, the company’s chief executive, declares war on the employees at the first hint of a unionization effort"
no.
the class war always exists. management declares war on labour the moment that they're hired, and organization is required to protect them from these perpetual attacks by management.
the management class exists and survives solely by stealing labour from it's employees, in the terms of underpaying them. that is the definition of capitalism. it will always seek, by any means that are allowed to it, to increase the quantity of this theft, and to further enforce as much inequality as is possible. it is not reacting to employees, it is constantly acting aggressively against them, and there is nothing that employees can do to stop this aggression besides organizing into unions so that they can defend themselves.
a minor point in context? no. it lets out a capitalist bias, and a naivete about power.
you can imagine the meme, right?
no.
the class war always exists. management declares war on labour the moment that they're hired, and organization is required to protect them from these perpetual attacks by management.
the management class exists and survives solely by stealing labour from it's employees, in the terms of underpaying them. that is the definition of capitalism. it will always seek, by any means that are allowed to it, to increase the quantity of this theft, and to further enforce as much inequality as is possible. it is not reacting to employees, it is constantly acting aggressively against them, and there is nothing that employees can do to stop this aggression besides organizing into unions so that they can defend themselves.
a minor point in context? no. it lets out a capitalist bias, and a naivete about power.
you can imagine the meme, right?
writes book about how activists don't understand power.
doesn't understand power.
i want to wheel myself back, though, and point out that there's a difference between trying to mobilize in the context of bourgeois politics (where you have to pay attention to things like demographic majorities in geographic riding boundaries) and trying to mobilize in the context of revolutionary politics (where these borders don't meaningfully exist). and, that is itself a difference between how a union operates and how a social movement works.
so, the march to birmingham, for example, attracted people from everywhere - it didn't matter where you were from, it mattered only that you were there. then, when everybody went home, they elected some more racists in these districts. so, where the movement was able to make a difference at a higher level of government, it utterly failed to enact meaningful change at a local level.
so, you have to ask yourself what you're doing, too. if you're trying to take control of the house of representatives, you're going to need union support, and you're going to need to adjust to their privilege, kind of whether you like it or not. but, if you're trying to act independently of the existing system and enact actual revolutionary change outside of it, you have to come face to face with the realities of how class exists inside of labour politics in the twenty-first century.
so, the march to birmingham, for example, attracted people from everywhere - it didn't matter where you were from, it mattered only that you were there. then, when everybody went home, they elected some more racists in these districts. so, where the movement was able to make a difference at a higher level of government, it utterly failed to enact meaningful change at a local level.
so, you have to ask yourself what you're doing, too. if you're trying to take control of the house of representatives, you're going to need union support, and you're going to need to adjust to their privilege, kind of whether you like it or not. but, if you're trying to act independently of the existing system and enact actual revolutionary change outside of it, you have to come face to face with the realities of how class exists inside of labour politics in the twenty-first century.
the next thing she does is try to define mobilizing differently from organizing, as though we can snap our fingers and an organized movement will appear.
i take the point that she's making: often times left-wing agitators end up as this group of people that are essentially walled off from society. the movement really only exists in their own minds. i know this well because i've been there. the occupy kids were the same thing as the iww kids were the same thing as the idle no more kids were the same thing as the student strike kids, with minimal differences. these weren't different groups, but rather a way for a single group to organize it's own thoughts. but, it's not like we didn't know that, and it's not like that was something that we decided upon or even wanted.
what is more real is to point out that what we wanted to do was what she calls "organize", but what we had no other choice to do was what she called "mobilize", and the reason that we had no choice was that we didn't have enough support. we didn't have the people and we didn't have the resources because we didn't have the interest.
so, it doesn't make sense to argue that mobilizing is a failed strategy. when mobilizing is effective, it becomes organizing merely by expanding the number of people involved. and, that's really what the difference between mobilizing and organizing is, as she defines it - the question of how many people you can actually rally to the cause, which is the question of how effectively you're actually mobilizing.
a more productive thing to do here consequently wouldn't be to define organizing and mobilizing as different ideas, and then say that mobilizing is the wrong thing to do and organizing is the right thing to do. rather, the crux of the problem is in realizing that we're just not actually getting through to people and/or that the people we're getting through to don't have the time or ability to agitate. in order to substantively organize, we have to more effectively mobilize.
so, that is the meaningful question in front of us: how do we more effectively mobilize?
and, i know people are going to look at me blankly and state "social media", but i'm not sure that that's really the right answer. what we need to do is look at this idea of power, and ask whether mobilizing well paid union workers even actually even makes any sense or not. if the question is "how do we mobilize a worker that already owns a house due to victories won through previous generations of struggle?", maybe we're not asking the right question.
maybe we're not even mobilizing the right people, and maybe that's why our organizing isn't getting us anywhere.
i take the point that she's making: often times left-wing agitators end up as this group of people that are essentially walled off from society. the movement really only exists in their own minds. i know this well because i've been there. the occupy kids were the same thing as the iww kids were the same thing as the idle no more kids were the same thing as the student strike kids, with minimal differences. these weren't different groups, but rather a way for a single group to organize it's own thoughts. but, it's not like we didn't know that, and it's not like that was something that we decided upon or even wanted.
what is more real is to point out that what we wanted to do was what she calls "organize", but what we had no other choice to do was what she called "mobilize", and the reason that we had no choice was that we didn't have enough support. we didn't have the people and we didn't have the resources because we didn't have the interest.
so, it doesn't make sense to argue that mobilizing is a failed strategy. when mobilizing is effective, it becomes organizing merely by expanding the number of people involved. and, that's really what the difference between mobilizing and organizing is, as she defines it - the question of how many people you can actually rally to the cause, which is the question of how effectively you're actually mobilizing.
a more productive thing to do here consequently wouldn't be to define organizing and mobilizing as different ideas, and then say that mobilizing is the wrong thing to do and organizing is the right thing to do. rather, the crux of the problem is in realizing that we're just not actually getting through to people and/or that the people we're getting through to don't have the time or ability to agitate. in order to substantively organize, we have to more effectively mobilize.
so, that is the meaningful question in front of us: how do we more effectively mobilize?
and, i know people are going to look at me blankly and state "social media", but i'm not sure that that's really the right answer. what we need to do is look at this idea of power, and ask whether mobilizing well paid union workers even actually even makes any sense or not. if the question is "how do we mobilize a worker that already owns a house due to victories won through previous generations of struggle?", maybe we're not asking the right question.
maybe we're not even mobilizing the right people, and maybe that's why our organizing isn't getting us anywhere.
i do want to point out that she starts the book by talking about how liberals don't understand power, which i think is a kind of a red herring, but, more importantly, that she then neither cites foucault nor angela davis even once.
how do you write a book about activists not understanding power in 2016 and manage to not even cite foucault once? i mean, you'd think you'd at least tear him down, which is what i would do. how can you completely ignore him? he's the source for understanding power on the left.
unless i've answered my own question, right?
i should read it first, but i suspect that this is going to essentially be a regurgitation of foucault, and that's why you start your book off like that. "you've never read foucault. let me sell his ideas to you.".
that's a hypothesis, not an accusation. let's see how accurate it is.
how do you write a book about activists not understanding power in 2016 and manage to not even cite foucault once? i mean, you'd think you'd at least tear him down, which is what i would do. how can you completely ignore him? he's the source for understanding power on the left.
unless i've answered my own question, right?
i should read it first, but i suspect that this is going to essentially be a regurgitation of foucault, and that's why you start your book off like that. "you've never read foucault. let me sell his ideas to you.".
that's a hypothesis, not an accusation. let's see how accurate it is.
so, the reading at the socialist book club - which i've never been to - is Jane McAlevey's "No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age".
it's not even 200 pages, so i should be able to give it a good read this morning. and, this is actually kind of what this blog is actually for, so i'll post some comments about it as they come up....
i haven't read this or heard about it previously, but a quick google search indicates that it's not presenting any new ideas, and i'll have to see how it's summarizing old ones. to begin with, i'm reminded of the famous response to the pharoah that there is "no royal road to geometry", something that the internet currently wants to apocryphally attribute to euclid, but that i remember being attributed to heron. there's a subtle point, here, that i should explain more fully: the point that the mathematician, be it heron or euclid, was trying to get across to the greco-egyptian pharoah, ptolemy, was that his privilege and status and wealth and power was not going to help him understand better, he has to work it out like everybody else. this is a sentiment, fwiw, that was not extended to napoleon, who was granted a theorem by the academy to demonstrate his superior abilities in the field of reason. you really can't underestimate the importance that these values of equality played in greek's indigenous democratic culture, can you?
the point that the geometer, be it euclid or heron, was getting across to the pharoah should perhaps not be lost on middle or upper class organizers that i know from experience think they are intellectually and at times even morally superior to these rank and file workers. and, it's a point that is perhaps at the center of the catastrophe that is the contemporary democratic party in the united states - everybody needs to work together, and everybody needs to work hard, if we want to get something substantive done.
but, somebody with an anarchist background isn't going to find much insight in these arguments that vertical organizing practices are at the centre of the problems the labour movement has been having, or that there seems to be a discerning lack of revolutionary potential in the union rank and file. i've been making these arguments in this space for almost a decade now, even if much of it is yet to be reposted, and i'm really just taking notes on malatesta, and to a lesser extent on gramsci. a contemporary socialist thinker that will be remembered in the future and that has been making these arguments forever is richard wolff. so, is this going to be worth reading, or is it just a summary of existing points?
we'll find out, i guess.
but, i'm more interested in the discussion, obviously. i'm a little bit apprehensive in involving myself in american party politics - i cannot vote in the united states, and do not even live there - but something like the dsa should have an internationalist character to it that transcends that kind of thing. i'm happy to be the anarchist in the room, if it comes to it.
but, let's see what the book actually says.
it's not even 200 pages, so i should be able to give it a good read this morning. and, this is actually kind of what this blog is actually for, so i'll post some comments about it as they come up....
i haven't read this or heard about it previously, but a quick google search indicates that it's not presenting any new ideas, and i'll have to see how it's summarizing old ones. to begin with, i'm reminded of the famous response to the pharoah that there is "no royal road to geometry", something that the internet currently wants to apocryphally attribute to euclid, but that i remember being attributed to heron. there's a subtle point, here, that i should explain more fully: the point that the mathematician, be it heron or euclid, was trying to get across to the greco-egyptian pharoah, ptolemy, was that his privilege and status and wealth and power was not going to help him understand better, he has to work it out like everybody else. this is a sentiment, fwiw, that was not extended to napoleon, who was granted a theorem by the academy to demonstrate his superior abilities in the field of reason. you really can't underestimate the importance that these values of equality played in greek's indigenous democratic culture, can you?
the point that the geometer, be it euclid or heron, was getting across to the pharoah should perhaps not be lost on middle or upper class organizers that i know from experience think they are intellectually and at times even morally superior to these rank and file workers. and, it's a point that is perhaps at the center of the catastrophe that is the contemporary democratic party in the united states - everybody needs to work together, and everybody needs to work hard, if we want to get something substantive done.
but, somebody with an anarchist background isn't going to find much insight in these arguments that vertical organizing practices are at the centre of the problems the labour movement has been having, or that there seems to be a discerning lack of revolutionary potential in the union rank and file. i've been making these arguments in this space for almost a decade now, even if much of it is yet to be reposted, and i'm really just taking notes on malatesta, and to a lesser extent on gramsci. a contemporary socialist thinker that will be remembered in the future and that has been making these arguments forever is richard wolff. so, is this going to be worth reading, or is it just a summary of existing points?
we'll find out, i guess.
but, i'm more interested in the discussion, obviously. i'm a little bit apprehensive in involving myself in american party politics - i cannot vote in the united states, and do not even live there - but something like the dsa should have an internationalist character to it that transcends that kind of thing. i'm happy to be the anarchist in the room, if it comes to it.
but, let's see what the book actually says.
one more crazy weekend, then?
i need to check the weather, carefully.
so, i can't promise i'll show up to all of it, but these are my picks.
fri:
17:00-20:00 - trey priest @ detroit shipping company. midtown. $0 + beer costs.
19:30-22:00 - my brightest diamond + marcus elliot @ dso courtyard. midtown. $0.
22:30-02:00 - another dimension @ tangent gallery. newtown. $15 pre-sale + beer costs.
02:00-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #1 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $10?
if i stay, i'll then eat, and i'll pay around $10.
sat
10:00-12:00 - august dsa meeting @ ant hall. hamtramck. $0.
14:00-20:00 - punk rock bbq @ kelly's. hamtramck. $7 + beer costs.
20:00-01:00 - saajtak record release @ ghost light. hamtramck. $10.
01:30-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #2 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $15?
if i stay, i'll then eat again, and i'll pay around $10.
sun:
12:00-14:00 - opera 101 @ voigt park. boston-edison. $0.
15:00-17:00+ - socialist book club meeting @ 2283 holbrook. hamtramck. $0 + coffee.
19:30-00:00 - cherubs + child bite @ small's. hamtramck. $13 + beer costs.
i need to check the weather, carefully.
so, i can't promise i'll show up to all of it, but these are my picks.
fri:
17:00-20:00 - trey priest @ detroit shipping company. midtown. $0 + beer costs.
19:30-22:00 - my brightest diamond + marcus elliot @ dso courtyard. midtown. $0.
22:30-02:00 - another dimension @ tangent gallery. newtown. $15 pre-sale + beer costs.
02:00-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #1 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $10?
if i stay, i'll then eat, and i'll pay around $10.
sat
10:00-12:00 - august dsa meeting @ ant hall. hamtramck. $0.
14:00-20:00 - punk rock bbq @ kelly's. hamtramck. $7 + beer costs.
20:00-01:00 - saajtak record release @ ghost light. hamtramck. $10.
01:30-08:00? - there are two options for secret show #2 until an unknown time in the morning. i can't post here. the cops are savage, lately. but, look around. $15?
if i stay, i'll then eat again, and i'll pay around $10.
sun:
12:00-14:00 - opera 101 @ voigt park. boston-edison. $0.
15:00-17:00+ - socialist book club meeting @ 2283 holbrook. hamtramck. $0 + coffee.
19:30-00:00 - cherubs + child bite @ small's. hamtramck. $13 + beer costs.
on second thought, i found exactly what i was looking for. and, i bet bono is jealous. i'm not this edgy in real life, though. i could keep going, but i don't want to turn your ears to clay. and, you're mullin' over why i'm doing this, too.
i'm sorry. really.
i am almost certainly not going to go out on friday afternoon and come back on sunday night. but, at this point, i have enough planned that i could.
we'll see what feels right.
and, i'll wait until next week before i do groceries.
i'm sorry. really.
i am almost certainly not going to go out on friday afternoon and come back on sunday night. but, at this point, i have enough planned that i could.
we'll see what feels right.
and, i'll wait until next week before i do groceries.
when you haven't eaten in a while, pictures of greasy food start to look particularly appetizing. mmmm.
actually, i've had some fruit salad and i've been drinking coffee (with chocolate soy) all week. so, i'm not fasting. atheists don't fast, they at most toy with bulimia. i'll hit my target on friday morning, but i actually want to avoid having a giant plate of spaghetti when i do.
i stopped this morning to clean, and in turn stopped cleaning to do a grocery list, and then stopped the grocery list to research shows this weekend, because i didn't want to buy food and then go away for the weekend. if the very hot weather here is being pushed away by the return of that low winter jet stream, the issue should resolve itself, but my fridge here is a little bit low on power and doesn't keep fruit as well as i'd like it to in the humidity. everything's in tupperware, but it's only a half answer. and, no, i'm not turning the fucking a/c on. if i'm going to be away all weekend, it will make sense to wait to get groceries....
i'm iffy on a show on saturday night, but would kind of like to get to small's for a show on sunday evening. i don't expect that i'll actually go all the way to small's just for a few hours, though. and, i can't find a saturday overnight...
i'm leaning towards a no, but we'll see how it goes.
in the mean time, i'm struggling with a stench in this apartment that i can't trace. first of all, i don't know what the smell is. i'm down to three possibilities. the first is that the guy upstairs is storing garbage in his house, and i think that's unlikely - but if he is, then i'm smelling it rotting. the second is that.....he has a black lab. black labs are going to poop, and it's not their fault. so, he has a giant pail of dogshit around somewhere or other, and that's what i'm smelling. and, the third is that i'm smelling him, through some combination of garlic-y food and poor hygiene.
if i could figure out where it's actually coming from, i could begin to react, but it's the same as it was when i was smelling him smoking - i can't figure out how it's actually getting in.
i crashed around 17:00 or so while ruling out a show at the tangent gallery on friday. you can imagine that electronic music with live guitars is fundamentally intriguing to me, but you can't fix bad dubstep with tasty guitar licks. i could maybe see myself getting into some of this "bass music" as idm if it's orchestrated properly, but you just can't dance to it, and it's not fun when it's stripped down. i had this discussion last week about dubstep: in theory, dubstep for 100-piece orchestra would be phenomenal, but the talent just doesn't exist in the genre. these brostep dudes just don't know shit. if they did....but they just don't. i might change my mind if the weather is nicer than forecast. but, for now, i'm going to finish my run through seeking sunday options to see if i can construct a saturday aft---->sunday eve fun day, and then adjust my grocery list as required.
i should be back to finalizing the sept rebuild, one way or the other, by the afternoon.
actually, i've had some fruit salad and i've been drinking coffee (with chocolate soy) all week. so, i'm not fasting. atheists don't fast, they at most toy with bulimia. i'll hit my target on friday morning, but i actually want to avoid having a giant plate of spaghetti when i do.
i stopped this morning to clean, and in turn stopped cleaning to do a grocery list, and then stopped the grocery list to research shows this weekend, because i didn't want to buy food and then go away for the weekend. if the very hot weather here is being pushed away by the return of that low winter jet stream, the issue should resolve itself, but my fridge here is a little bit low on power and doesn't keep fruit as well as i'd like it to in the humidity. everything's in tupperware, but it's only a half answer. and, no, i'm not turning the fucking a/c on. if i'm going to be away all weekend, it will make sense to wait to get groceries....
i'm iffy on a show on saturday night, but would kind of like to get to small's for a show on sunday evening. i don't expect that i'll actually go all the way to small's just for a few hours, though. and, i can't find a saturday overnight...
i'm leaning towards a no, but we'll see how it goes.
in the mean time, i'm struggling with a stench in this apartment that i can't trace. first of all, i don't know what the smell is. i'm down to three possibilities. the first is that the guy upstairs is storing garbage in his house, and i think that's unlikely - but if he is, then i'm smelling it rotting. the second is that.....he has a black lab. black labs are going to poop, and it's not their fault. so, he has a giant pail of dogshit around somewhere or other, and that's what i'm smelling. and, the third is that i'm smelling him, through some combination of garlic-y food and poor hygiene.
if i could figure out where it's actually coming from, i could begin to react, but it's the same as it was when i was smelling him smoking - i can't figure out how it's actually getting in.
i crashed around 17:00 or so while ruling out a show at the tangent gallery on friday. you can imagine that electronic music with live guitars is fundamentally intriguing to me, but you can't fix bad dubstep with tasty guitar licks. i could maybe see myself getting into some of this "bass music" as idm if it's orchestrated properly, but you just can't dance to it, and it's not fun when it's stripped down. i had this discussion last week about dubstep: in theory, dubstep for 100-piece orchestra would be phenomenal, but the talent just doesn't exist in the genre. these brostep dudes just don't know shit. if they did....but they just don't. i might change my mind if the weather is nicer than forecast. but, for now, i'm going to finish my run through seeking sunday options to see if i can construct a saturday aft---->sunday eve fun day, and then adjust my grocery list as required.
i should be back to finalizing the sept rebuild, one way or the other, by the afternoon.
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