leftist

Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent

payal — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

My fascination with the anti-globalization movement, like my own baby steps into activism, is a late bloomer. I came of age when my peers were shutting down Seattle. I was reading Marx for the first time in college when IMF protestors took to the streets in DC. Yet throughout my extended adolescence, radical politics was background noise. I never paused to find out why globalization made people so angry. Like a lot of people growing up white and middle class, militancy was excessive and embarrassing. Admirable in heroes of the past, the world is civil now (I felt), with no need for insurrections or rage against the machine.

Yet most of the activists in the streets of Seattle also came from nice, white, middle-class homes in suburbia. In fact, this was a common critique of the anti-globalization movement in North America. Instead of multiracial inclusion, the movement seems to reproduce the same racial and class privilege so abhorrent in global capitalism.

This is precisely the criticism AK Thompson tackles in Black Bloc, White Riot. His response is not a how-to for recruiting people of color and/or those lower on the socioeconomic scale. Instead, his aim is to analyze the anti-globalization movement in its white, middle-class character. I.e., rather than complain that the movement is too white so let's find some black and brown people, he wants to account for why young white people came to the movement at all. After locating it in the particular experience of whiteness, he can proceed to the limitations of the movement's politics (as well as its strengths).

Referencing radical favorites like Paulo Freire, Audre Lorde, and Fight Club, and full of phrases like "the white experience of constitutive lack," the book reads like many a lefty intellectual's work. Whether you find this annoying or exhilarating, the arguments boil down to a few simple ideas. A key theme is turning toward a politics of production rather than representation, by which Thompson means focusing on how to get things done, not the symbolic significance of objects and images. For instance, don't worry that gas masks look monstrous in the eyes of the media; focus on the fact that wearing them allows protesters to face tear-gas-hurling police. It's about what one does, not how one appears.

Thompson also emphasizes the importance of violence. Violence, he argues, is a productive force like labor, which puts one in direct material contact with the world and explodes the representational politics that are deadly to the soul (when nothing substantial is accomplished) and deadly to the body (when unjust social structures persist in creating poverty, illness, and climate change). As force is monopolized by governments, historically it is only when groups proved capable of violence that they received political recognition and agency: colonized peoples, immigrants, and women.

In Chapter Four: “You Can't Do Gender in a Riot,” Thompson anticipates criticism that advocating violence amounts to accepting a sexist, patriarchal model. He argues the material fact that women can and have engaged in violent political struggle. Furthermore, participation in violence is one arena that allows activists to transcend gender. He quotes a female Black Bloc member, who explains how the baggy clothes and black hooded sweatshirt allows her gendered identity to disappear—a perfect example of the politics of production.

I wouldn't recommend this book as a first introduction to the movement. But if you are familiar with the stakes and the story of anti-globalization, it's an analysis worth considering, regardless of race and class background.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, December 24th 2010

Please Don’t Bomb The Suburbs: A Midterm Report on My Generation and the Future of Our Super Movement

payal — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By William Upski Wimsatt

Akashic

Depending on your age and your social/political circle, you may not know the name William Upski Wimsatt. In his youth, Wimsatt was the youngest Utne Reader “Visionary” award winner. In the last two decades, he’s written several books about the suburbs, the prison industrial complex, white urban subculture, hip-hop, and graffiti. These days, he’s mostly known for political organizing and working with and supporting groups like Generational Alliance and Resource Generation.

Following up his 1994 book Bomb the Suburbs, which garnered him a bit of a cultish progressive following, Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs is Wimsatt’s older (if not much wiser) take on adulthood, organizing, and personal politics. The book’s basic premise is this: Get power, get corporate power, use it for good. If you don’t agree with that message from the jump—or you’re not already a fan of Wimsatt’s grandstanding and youth minister-esque appeal—you may not get a whole hell of a lot out of Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs.

From the jump, Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs is a bit confusing for folks new to the activist’s work. Written as one man’s account of what has been important in the last thirty years of American progressive organizing, it’s anything but comprehensive or objective. Mixing storytelling and action plans in a somewhat haphazard fashion and at times reading like a who’s who of modern progressive activism, Wimsatt shamelessly name-drops seemingly everyone he’s ever known or worked with, from Van Jones to Adrienne Marie Brown. While that’s not inherently bad, it’s terribly insular and not very interesting—especially to the outsider, non-activists Wimsatt claims to want to reach.

Wimsatt writes that his audience for the book is two groups: seasoned forty-two-year-old businesspeople and curious seventeen-year-olds just learning about progressive movements. That said, he also wants desperately to identify with people across this entire spectrum of age and experience. By Wimsatt’s definition, he and I share a generation—he claims both Gen X and Gen Y as “his”—even though he’s more than ten years older than me, and I’m one of the oldest in the Millennial club. This sort of confusing, broad, and aimless reaching to include people is the ultimate weakness of the book, when it was no doubt intended to be its strength.

Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs isn’t an analytical dissection of movements and organizing. If anything, it’s one man’s self-congratulatory journey through youthful transgressions to his late thirties, when he realized, as he writes in the book, “Adulthood hits you like whoa.” That same tone, carried throughout, makes the book feel more like a blog than an actual literary accomplishment. I’m sadly not post-print enough to think that turning blog-like ramblings into a bound publication is a good idea; nevermind whether I agree that adulthood “hits you like whoa.”

Wimsatt covers a lot of topics without nuance. He praises the work of non-profits without addressing the non-profit industrial complex. He warns of how overpopulation is pushing humanity to the brink of disaster, and on the same page, questions whether or not he’ll have children. Wimsatt blindly embraces new media, excited about the potential for change using online tools, without considering the drawbacks and legitimate reasons why Facebook is not part of a truly progressive revolution.

It’s incredibly difficult to write a book that appeals to a thirty-eight-year-old suburban homeowner with nephews and a sixteen-year-old urban blogger who’s just learning about environmentalism. It’s also difficult to explore nuance and history when you believe your own experiences and your own self-selected version of history takes precedent. As much as I’d like to believe in the collectivism of a movement necessary for the generation- and experience-breaking organizing that Wimsatt tries to hawk in Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs, this conversational plea to remain relevant didn’t sell me on anything.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, December 22nd 2010

You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Seth Tobocman

AK Press

You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive is a collection of graphic work by comic artist and activist Seth Tobocman. The artwork dates back to 1980, when Tobocman and Peter Kuper founded the political comix magazine War World 3 Illustrated, and critical issues of this era are addressed, including Reaganomics, the AIDS pandemic, gentrification struggles in New York City, the occupation of Palestine, and the imprisonment of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive was originally published in 1989 and then again ten years later. Both times it sold out quickly. This most recent acquisition and printing from AK Press is a sign of Tobocman’s work's longevity, and the continued demand for his politically conscious art.

Tobocman is a fixture of New York City’s downtown punk scene and the Lower East Side squatter’s movement. Chances are local readers have seen him in his Lower East Side neighborhood, maybe reading at Bluestockings or ABC No Rio. Tobocman, like his comics, is accessible, present, and engaged in his community. His comics have never been recognized or celebrated by the mainstream art market, which is not surprising considering his critique of bourgeois conformist politics, and Tobocman produces art for the street, not the gallery.

This latest release of You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive gives longtime fans, as well as first-time readers, a chance to enjoy Tobocman’s art and utilize his images (as activists and community organizers often have) to produce political posters, buttons, patches, and graffiti. The direct and utilitarian nature of Tobocman’s work, and of comic art in general, is so appealing because you get an immediate, straightforward, and high impact method of communication and direct action marketing. You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive is a creative, in-your-face resource and a critical tool for resistance.

Written by: Jeanne Vaccaro, April 14th 2010

First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:07:00 +0000

By Slavoj Žižek

Verso

Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek’s latest work—a call to the Left to reinvent itself in a time of international crisis—begins with a nod to Marx’s correction of Hegel in The Eighteenth Brumaire Of Louis Bonaparte: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great events and characters of world history occur, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Indeed, when you examine the two speeches that bookend former President Bush’s term in office—the one in the aftermath of 9/11, and the one in which he addressed the global financial meltdown—you begin to notice that the first (the tragedy) sounds remarkably similar to the second (the farce).

Many people have known for years that the global banking system was on the verge of collapse. For more than a decade, police have been summoned to disperse protests around the world in which activists have called for more transparency and accountability. Last year, Naomi Klein wrote about the relationship between ideology and economics—the fact that there is no such thing as a neutral market—in The Shock Doctrine.

When the markets finally did crumble, instead of compulsively tossing billions of dollars at a problem, we would do well to reflect on how it came to be. In First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, Žižek is highly critical of the Right’s shortsighted call to “Save Main Street, not Wall Street!” which fails to recognize that most obvious capitalistic principles: in a capitalist society, Main Street cannot exist without Wall Street. Period.

Žižek explores the idea that the Left should stop apologizing in the face of the Right’s moralistic blackmail. Instead of focusing on supposedly dismal or inappropriate cultural shifts, the Right should be held fully accountable for the devastating economic recession. In general, meltdowns—of economic, cultural, or nationalistic stability—should awaken us instead of being bandaged over to allow the dream to continue. That is, 9/11, much like the banking crisis, should have served as an ideological wake-up call. Asserting additional military force in the Middle East or bailing out failing banks and corporations like General Motors with taxpayer money does nothing but continue a cycle of confusing ignorance for the general public. It promotes a type of populist conservatism in which middle class people literally vote against their own self interest.

Of the many admirable qualities in his work, what I like best about Žižek is his ability to masterfully dissect U.S. policy. One might argue that Slovenia’s problems deserve such a critical eye, but I appreciate that Žižek so eloquently dismantles problematic American foreign policy and class war disguised as culture war from an outsider’s perspective. A European Chomsky of sorts, Žižek’s theory is a must-read for any scholar or layperson interested in twenty-first century capitalism, economics, and contemporary Leftist thought.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, November 3rd 2009

Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People's Enlightenment in Canada, 1890-1920

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Ian McKay

Between The Lines

Turn-of-the-century Canadian Leftists built the foundations for later thought and organizing, but their stories have largely gone untold. In his efforts to change that, Ian McKay writes not a great book, but a necessary and useful one in Reasoning Otherwise. Given that he describes his methods as reconnaissance, "several steps down the ladder of comprehensiveness from a polished final synthesis," he would likely see the compliment in that evaluation.

After an introduction in which McKay describes his method's theoretical grounding in such detail that most non-specialists will want to skim through it, the book proceeds through another eight chapters. Each forms a foray that begins with the retelling of an important incident in Canadian leftist history. McKay then uses a variety of discourses—historical, philosophical, sociological, and literary—to weave that anecdote into a consideration of broader issues and trends.

The first two incursions of Reasoning Otherwise should have been folded into one. "Socialism: The Revolutionary Science of Social Evolution" examines the use early Canadian socialists made of social evolution and the writings of Herbert Spencer. McKay's nuanced consideration creates the intellectual basis on which later chapters rely. "The Emergence of the First Formation in Canada, 1890-1902" provides a more practical base, beginning with a meeting in 1901 which "mark[ed] the first time in Canada that homegrown radical and socialist organizations got together to merge simple local clubs and units into a more complex interprovincial body." It then tells the stories of important Leftist figures who attended this meeting, followed by a consideration of the challenges attendees faced in and posed to the established liberal order. Divided from the first chapter's ideas, however, this part of the book lacks focus.

Each of the following four chapters revolves around a single issue. That "The Class Question" comes first reflects the notion (extant then and now) that socialism should center on socioeconomic issues. Here, McKay shrewdly uses conceptualizations of class as a golden thread to explore the complicated history of Leftist parties and organizations during the period.

"The Religion Question" focuses on Christianity though other spiritualities, such as Theosophy and Buddhism, make brief appearances. McKay considers divisions between Christian denominations and compares different versions of the social gospel. In so doing, he shows an appropriate level of respect for Christian socialists without ignoring criticisms made by their contemporaries.

The most problematic chapter, "The Woman Question," comes fifth. The title itself, while using the terminology of the day, marks it as different: woman is not equivalent to class or religion. It fails to describe the contents of the incursion accurately, as McKay includes both Leftist homophobia and the construction of socialist masculinity within the chapter. Discussing the former under the heading "The Woman Question" rather than "The Sex Question" inaccurately implies that socialist feminists bore the greatest responsibility for such discrimination.McKay more successfully addresses "The Race Question." He considers not only how white-dominated socialist movements made alliances with other racial groups, but also how fragile those alliances were. He does not ignore the role of racism and the construction of Whiteness within the Left.

After the questions, "War, Revolution, and General Strike" describes how Leftist takes on these issues, along with socialist parties and individuals, transformed during the era of World War I. A description of how The Great War led simultaneously to repression and a second flowering of the Canadian Left concludes with the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. This leads directly into the show trials which, in the final chapter, McKay uses to bring the book to a conclusion that does not pretend to be the last word on the subject. While not a perfect examination of Canada's turn-of-the-century Leftists, _Reasoning Otherwise _does achieve its author's end. McKay begins the process of filling a gap in the historical scholarship with careful thought and a style that is, for the most part, accessible to non-academic readers.

Cross-posted with Gender Across Borders

Written by: Elizabeth Kate Switaj, August 17th 2009

Turning the Tide: Challenging the Right on Campus

admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:55:00 +0000

By Anuradha Mittal, Felicia Gustin

The Institute for Democratic Education and Culture/Speak Out

Turning the Tide: Challenging the Right on Campus includes an inspirational foreword by Howard Zinn. Informative is an understatement; this analysis provides a detailed account of right-wing and extremist vindictiveness on college campuses. This 40-page booklet includes a brief historical overview of the conflict between proponents of religious instruction and progressives who value free thinking in higher education. Mittal and Gustin incorporate newsworthy reports on “conservative youth-focusing organizations” with a special report on the amount of money they spend and the activities they engage in.

Published by the Institute for Democratic Education and Culture (IDEC)/Speak Out and the Oakland Institute, this analysis serves as a perfect reference for all “watch dogs” interested in having on hand pertinent information about right-wing and corporate agendas that have begun to affect progressive students of colleges and universities nationwide. The booklet is separated into two distinct parts. The first section is a report of the conflict and the second section includes a discussion regarding “groundwork” and a proposal for future initiatives. A nice supplement to this work would be a practical guide to appropriate outreach organizations. Otherwise, this is a great introduction to the problems facing students today.

Turning the Tide is a call for action as well as a tool that can be used to inform and reenergize any activist. The easy to read format encourages quick review during free time and painless future referencing. The end of the report incorporates discussion points regarding long-term strategies for progressive activists to support student leaders, mentors, and faculty members who struggle to preserve liberal education. This is an essential read and a viable reference work; its succinctness makes it accessible to a wide audience.

Written by: Aaron Nugua, March 1st 2007