April 2008
Il Berlusconi
The Guardian:
Silvio Berlusconi, who won a general election earlier this month, welcomed the latest evidence of Italy’s leap to the right by declaring: “We are the new Falange.” Although he took care to wrap his remark in a classical context, his choice of words appeared to be a nod and a wink to his most extreme supporters.
… On Monday night, the area around Rome’s city hall rang to chants of “Duce! Duce!”, the term adopted by Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini, equivalent to the German “Führer”. Supporters of the new mayor gave the fascist Roman straight-arm salutes.
(Via Daily Kos.)
366 Songs: March EP
As spring approaches, so does a new 366 Songs EP.
Get the best of my March recordings here. As a whole, I was much more comfortable with this month than the previous two. It was a little harder to cut it down to six.
Barricades of May ’68 Still Divide the French
This article in the Times makes an interesting point about the legacy of May 1968 forty years later:
Forty years ago, French students in neckties and bobby socks threw cobblestones at the police and demanded that the sclerotic postwar system must change. Today, French students, worried about finding jobs and losing state benefits, are marching through the streets demanding that nothing change at all.
I also thought this remark on Sarkozy was particularly insightful:
“Sarkozy is the first post-’68 president,” Mr. Glucksmann said. “To liquidate ’68 is to liquidate himself.”
It seems to me that, following Kojin Karatani’s advice in Transcritique, the goal of any emancipatory political struggle (starting with the currently benign status of student activism) should not be to admit defeat by relegating one’s activities solely to the pragmatic doldrums of disparate factionalism (environmental, sexual, humanitarian, etc.), nor to consolidate these groups under some “master signifier” group. Instead, the student Left must (re-)formulate the very foundation upon which a larger political goal is to be conceived. I find Karatani’s espousal of New Associationism to be quite compelling, especially in regards to his remark that consumer advocacy and the labor movement are fundamentally one in the same.
May ‘68’s legacy is both inspiring and tragic: it demonstrates the potential for society to mobilize around some regulative idea, yet at the same time it was ultimately a failure to the extent that what was lacking was “fidelity to the Event,” to use Badiou’s terms. However, the movement should not function as a source of nostalgia for the lost radical past, but perhaps as a “regulative idea” in and for itself that could guide us towards some authentic Act. Now the goal should be to provide an economic safety net in the temporal gap between such an Act and what precedes it. New Associationism serves this function and therefore seems worth pursuing.
Children’s Story
Found this track again after Bryan reminded me of it, it was on Tom Waits’ Orphans: Bastards. Turns the words are actually a segment from Woyzeck. Anyway, this animation is great:
Edit: This one is also amazing.
Keith Richards Dislikes David Bowie
This is sort of disappointing since I have a lot of respect for both of them.
The Stone, when asked what his favourite Bowie track is, said he is “not a huge fan” of the legendary and pioneering artist. He chooses track Hunky Dory track “Changes” as the only one he can ‘remember’. Richards also goes on to say “It’s all pose. It’s all fucking posing. It’s nothing to do with music. He knows it too. I can’t think of anything else he’s done that would make my hair stand up.”
But when you think about it, I have a hard time imagining Keith Richards enjoying say, Life on Mars or the Berlin trilogy. Still, not even one of the glam rock Ziggy albums? There are some great rock and roll tracks on those albums.
Eh, in the end it’s not really anyone’s business.
Working Life (High and Low)
A great piece of journalism by Stephen Greenhouse in the New York Times on the ever-worse working conditions for many Americans. (Via A Tiny Revolution.)
The Phenomenal Slavoj Zizek
Terry Eagleton has just written a quasi-humorous book review of Zizek’s In Defense of Lost Causes for the Times Literary Supplement. It accomplishes its task in making Zizek seem like a psychopath. This, I thought, was a great remark:
[Zizek] was, he tells us, tempted to suggest for the dust jacket of one of his books: “In his free time, Žižek likes to surf the internet for child pornography and teach his small son how to pull the legs off spiders”.
For a decent summary of Zizek’s overall project and a few good jokes, I suggest reading this in its entirety. (Via The Weblog.)
Bush Made Permanent
Paul Krugman on John McCain’s proposed tax plan:
The McCain tax plan contains three main elements.
First, Mr. McCain proposes making almost all of the Bush tax cuts, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, permanent. (He proposes reinstating the inheritance tax, albeit at a very low rate.)
Second, he wants to eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which was originally created to prevent the wealthy from exploiting tax loopholes, but has begun to hit the upper middle class.
Third, he wants to sharply reduce tax rates on corporate profits.
… But here’s the thing: the reason the Bush tax cuts are set to expire is that the Bush administration engaged in a game of deception. It put an expiration date on the tax cuts, which it never intended to honor, as a way to hide those tax cuts’ true cost.
… If truth be told, the McCain tax plan doesn’t seem to embody any coherent policy agenda. Instead, it looks like a giant exercise in pandering — an attempt to mollify the G.O.P.’s right wing, and never mind if it makes any sense.
Krugman has obviously forgotten that “a giant exercise in pandering” is a “coherent policy agenda.”
U.S. Weighing Readiness for Military Action Against Iran
My opinion on the issue of a possible war with Iran has always been somewhat dismissive, mainly because, to me at least, it seems so absurd: the U.S. has failed to achieve any real objective in both Afghanistan and Iraq, unless that objective was to waste trillions of dollars on promoting terrorism in the Middle East through invasion and destruction. Consequently, my assumption has been that a lot of what has been/is coming out of the White House and the Pentagon is little more than empty posturing to secure some sort of “soft power” — this, I think, has been the basic strategy behind the issue of Iran’s nuclear “status.”
To my surprise, the WaPo article seems to suggest that the Bush administration is seriously considering an offensive against Tehran. I suppose this isn’t surprising when putting their entire eight-year legacy into full spectrum: close to a decade of what would otherwise be considered hilarious folly, if it wasn’t so tragically horrifying. An invasion of Iran, in this context, would be consistent with their past record of abysmal failure and stupefying idiocy. It would, like all of the others, also make a great parting gift for future generations, ensuring that money that could have otherwise been well-spent on utopian Communist objectives, like social welfare and education, will instead be funneled into a giant, atemporal black hole mired in the miasma of empty nationalist rhetoric (e.g., “support our troops,” “freedom isn’t free”).
So, my hope is that it’s more empty posturing, but that kind of optimism hasn’t exactly panned out in any fruitful way when it comes to expectations from the Bush administration.
Style
Wise words from Dr. Sinthome over at Larval Subjects on the often impenetrable, but perhaps unnecessarily so, writing of various thinkers and theorists:
Among the post-structuralists, at least, style was a way of subverting the metaphysics of presence and identity by drawing attention to the differential, the play of the signifier, our inability to pin down meaning due to the inherent polysemy of language.
… The veil in writing either produces a violent reaction of rejection or a sort of hypnotic attachment in the reader like a moth drawn to a flame. On the other hand, if the effect of hypnotic attachment is successfully produced, if we become convinced that the text hides a secret, we become locked in a power relationship with text and authorship where the author is now a master containing the truth of a secret, and the reader is perpetually inadequate, always close to the elusive truth of the secret of late Heidegger, late Lacan, Deleuze, Derrida, etc., while also always falling short.
… Does this mean I cease to read such figures or reject them out of hand? No. I do believe they hide secrets. However, if Badiou has contributed one thing to Continental thought, if one thing lasts in the case of Badiou, I hope it is the rejection of stylistic virtuousity [sic]… We live, we work, we must integrate superhuman bodies of information. Perhaps a little consideration is in order.
Message Force Multipliers
Jodi Dean writing in reference to the recent New York Times piece that details the Bush administration’s manipulation of public opinion on the Iraq War through former senior military officers:
Likewise, the Bush administration knows how to tie together seemingly stable meanings in ways that rely on these meanings, disrupt them, and generate affects from the tension surrounding the combustion of meaning and non-meaning. One of the most noticed early examples of this was the term “axis of evil.” John Stewart mentioned another term last night “non-Iraqi terrorists responsible for 9/11.” At any rate, the idea of multiplying message forces is useful because it fully acknowledges that the message is the carrier of a force, an affective force. The goal isn’t just ‘getting our message out there.’ That’s so old school, as if people read, think, consider, and understand. The goal is spreading and intensifying the message force. The generals were excellent vehicles for this spreading and distributing. Message force genbots.
Steve Fraser, The Two Gilded Ages
Tomdispatch featuring an article by Steven Fraser:
“Shareholder democracy” and the “ownership society” are admittedly more public relations slogans than anything tangible. Nonetheless, you can’t ignore the fact that, during the second Gilded Age, half of all American families became investors in the stock market. Dentists and engineers, mid-level bureaucrats and college professors, storekeepers and medical technicians — people, that is, from the broad spectrum of middle class life who once would have viewed the New York Stock Exchange with a mixture of awe, trepidation, and genuine distaste, and warily kept their distance — now jumped head first into the marketplace carrying with them all their febrile hopes for social elevation.
(Via I cite.)
WHO On Climate
As Mike Soron rightly points out, this is another shocking reminder of how the distribution of resources and those affected by global warming are intimately and tragically connected.
Florida’s Holy License Plate
If I can get an “I Don’t Believe” license plate that funds secular charities, I’ll be fine with this.
Jackie by Scott Walker
I just found this guy today… will look into it.
Bo Diddley Rips It Up
… in front of a blue screen!
Eyes Without a Face
Half a thousand posts!
No Shangri-La
Zizek on the Tibet/China Question:
What if the promised second stage, the democracy that follows the authoritarian vale of tears, never arrives? This, perhaps, is what is so unsettling about China today: the suspicion that its authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of our past – of the process of capitalist accumulation which, in Europe, took place from the 16th to the 18th century – but a sign of our future? What if the combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market proves economically more efficient than liberal capitalism? What if democracy, as we understand it, is no longer the condition and motor of economic development, but an obstacle to it?
I recommend reading the entire letter.
(Via The Weblog.)
Iggy Pop and Tom Waits
Heard part of this on Theme Time Radio, thought I’d share it.
The Wizard of Waukesha
I found this great documentary about Les Paul on youtube. In this clip you get: a classic Rolling Stones performance, Mike Bloomfield, and Les Paul himself. Mike Bloomfield talks almost as well as he plays.
Revolution of the Hungry
Bill Van Auken writing for the World Socialist Web Site:
What is emerging in the crisis over food prices is a tumultuous manifestation of a breakdown of the global capitalist order. The catastrophe facing billions of people around the globe cannot be resolved within the confines of a system based on private profit and the nation state.
The revolutionary implications of this crisis are beginning to dawn on elements within the ruling establishment itself. In an article published Monday, the influential US magazine Time noted: “The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War… And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world.”
(Via I cite.)
Leonard Cohen Live
According to Live Daily, Leonard Cohen is launching his first tour in 15 years next month with a series of concerts performed in Canada. His band includes bassist Roscoe Beck, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Neil Larsen, guitarists Bob Metzger and Javier Mas, stringed instrumentalist Christine Wu, drummer Rafael Gayol and multi-instrumentalist Dino Soldo. Tickets available here.
(Via Advanced Theory.)
Idiot of the Century: William Kristol
In his most recent op-ed column comparing Obama and Marx, William “They’ll Greet Us As Liberators” Kristol once again proves, as if there was any doubt, that he is the biggest blowhard in contemporary political discourse. Perhaps the biggest blowhard in the world.
(Via The Weblog.)
“Stalags”
Taking their name from the Nazi prison camps in which they were set, Stalags were Israeli pornographic paperbacks featuring Nazi themes.
This is ripe for a Lacanian reading.
Memory Chips For All!
Gary Marcus writing for the New York Times:
However difficult the practicalities, there’s no reason in principle why a future generation of neural prostheticists couldn’t pick up where nature left off, incorporating Google-like master maps into neural implants. This in turn would allow us to search our own memories — not just those on the Web — with something like the efficiency and reliability of a computer search engine.
In between recycling ideas that have already been discussed and developed at great length by a number of other talented scientists and writers, Gary Marcus seems to have lost sight of his own words:
How much would you pay to have a small memory chip implanted in your brain if that chip would double the capacity of your short-term memory?
Apparently, the idea that some people would be able to afford memory chips while others wouldn’t does not present “in principle” any sort of ethical dilemma. This insight is so stupidly obvious I feel rather embarrassed for pointing it out, but evidently the Times has lower expectations than that, or at the very least an alternative agenda.
Three Obvious Strategies to Fix Windows
Windows is a fat Paris Hilton. You want it to be a Wheaties box athlete. Put Windows on a diet, take away it’s toys and designer clothes. Make it run around the track a few thousand times. Give it a new mantra: Performance, performance, performance.
Book Club of Champions
Mike Levy writing for In These Times:
Guizhou University sits on the outskirts of Guiyang City, the sleepy capital of China’s poorest province… Life at Gui Da, as the school is locally known, is economically, socially, culturally and politically removed from life in America. Despite this, the school is home to an informal — and unlikely — group: a Kurt Vonnegut Fan Club.
“We don’t understand all of what Vonnegut wrote,” the club’s president, Isabel Yuan, told me, “But we think reading him helps us understand America.” Isabel and I spoke over a steaming pot of bitter pu’ er tea in a restaurant not far from the Gui Da campus. She sat upright, her black eyes focused on the porcelain cup in her hand. “Vonnegut,” she continued, “is our window into the American mind.”
Fantastic article.
The Monks’ Cuckoo
Banjo Yodel rock.
You Have To Burn The Rope
Remember when games were simple? Remember when they weren’t full of motion-sensing gobelty gook and shiney pidgeys and hours upon hours of exploratory value? Remember when games were fun? Mazapan.se does. Rediscover the joy of rigid linear gameplay. Travel the winding tunnels, jump through the air like a wet acrobat, face the Grinning Colosus. And then burn the rope.
Radiohead’s Bangers and Mash
Fuck them. They’re too good.
Necessitas legem non habet
The New York Times:
Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.
Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.
In State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben defines the concept of the “state of exception” as an expansion of governmental power structures in a supposed time of crisis. This crisis is often defined as a “necessity” to “protect” the law itself from some threatening internal or external force. The political power accrued through its invocation places one government, or one branch of government, as all powerful, operating within, yet outside of, established juridical precedence. It therefore constitutes a suspension of the law in which the force of the law is retained.
It is unfortunate that the fantasy discourse of immigration, which operates primarily through right-wing buzzwords such as “urgency” and “threat” (and, of course, race), has itself rarely been called into question by the media. Instead, the discourse often shifts to U.S. economic policy, citizenship, amnesty and so-called “liberal coddling.” What all of these issues miss is the more threatening issue, that of the rapid expansion of executive power through the suspension of law, which, at least to me, seems to have troubling juridico-political consequences for the future.
Bob Dylan Wins a Pulitzer Prize
Sometimes even symbolic gestures have a certain value. I can think of this being the case for both Robert Altman and Martin Scorcese as well. (Thanks to Jason.)
The Passion of the Howler
Title unrelated, but I figured it worth mentioning that Mark’s Song 97 of 366, “Karl Pilkington Has A Head Like a Fucking Orange,” has found its way into the lap of Ricky Gervais by way of Pilkipedia, the only Wiki dedicated to all things Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
A Clip from Talkshow with Spike Feresten
Talkshow with Spike Feresten is hands down the second best late night talk show on TV. When you’re watching that other talk show you enjoy, it would be criminal not to TiVo Spike Feresten. Seriously, a great, smart show.
And you can watch full episodes on the Fox site.
Update: It should be noted that Spike Feresten has “someone who googles [him], for [him].”
Proposal: Urban Gardening
For this proposal, gather a watering can and fill it with water. Go to your closest center of urban commerce and find objects that need water. Begin with a telephone pole, then try a post box. Once you have emptied the watering can your task is complete. It is suggested that you do not attempt this on a rainy day as overwatering may spoil your good intentions.
“Home Copying” Music
You cannot put the shaving cream back in the can. Even if it is “sexually frustrated.”
Three Music Videos from 366 Songs
I’ve been putting together music videos for a few of my songs so that they’re easier to find. Promotional devices if you will. In any case, here are the first three. If you’re interested bookmark the channel, because I don’t think I’ll keep posting them here, as that might get tedious.
The first one uses footage from an old soviet cartoon and my song from March 28th, “Anhedonia”.
The second one uses an old public domain video called “Peeping Tom’s Paradise” starring Betty Blue, presumably named after the genre of “blue movies.” It’s accompanied by my song from March 30th, “Petunia”.
And there’s more where that came from…
The third one uses claymation footage made by a Chinese American in the middle part of last century. It’s accompanied by my song from January 1st, “My Little Donkey”.
The Upside of Nationalism
David Sirota on how “progressives” can take advantage of the current climate of economic nationalism.
A Letter To Drug War Supporters: What Are You Smoking?
Here’s a letter I just wrote to the Michigan Daily concerning U.S. Drug Policy. I don’t know if it will or should be published, but either that’s why I’m putting it here. By the way, Hash Bash at Michigan is sort of a joke now-a-days, it really deters from anything resembling a social or political movement—it is nothing but a peanut gallery display for undergraduates to “experience” while they wait for their six-figure jobs. Anyway…
Read more on A Letter To Drug War Supporters: What Are You Smoking?…
Student Group Advocates Guns on Campus
Another morbidly idiotic endeavor undertaken by the right-wing libertarians, who seem to be quite in vogue wherever freedom flourishes. I have no problem with these clowns carrying pistols, so long as they use them on each other. Maybe then would we be spared from the oft-repeated recitations of their talking-point drivel, such as how much they love freedom, the founding fathers, the Constitution and other assorted myths and bullshit.
A Progressive Creed
Bernard Chazelle:
The purpose is a society that, first, preserve equal liberties; second, attends preferentially to the needs of the disadvantaged. All citizens are granted an unconditional claim upon the collectivity to be accorded the minimum resources necessary for a life of dignity and a genuine sense of belonging. Freedom from humiliation is never to be made contingent on any norm of conduct (such as law abidance). Equality of opportunity is sought as the fairest means of redistributing access to fundamental liberties.
The perspective affirms faith in the power of human agency to mediate between liberty and social justice. It posits the primacy of the political and the necessity of a wide public sphere. It favors public investments in shared goods (eg, health, education, infrastructure, and the environment). It asserts the regulatory function of the state and its role as ultimate guarantor of social provision. It regards economic growth as a means to an end and labor as an end in itself, not merely input into production. It views the concept of economic class as an indispensable measure of social stratification in policymaking. It is tolerant of economic distortions to the extent that they serve social justice or promote citizenship.
(Via A Tiny Revolution.)
Signing Statements
I strongly suggest you listen to this week’s This American Life which is about the dogged pursuit of power by the executive branch. One of the most challenging parts of the episode involved an interview with Charlie Savage about executive power and in particular, signing statements.
What Every American Should Know About the Middle East
For some inexplicable reason, no matter how many times I read about the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, that knowledge always seems to disappear after a while. I wonder if this is my own personal fault for not keeping up on Middle Eastern politics or if there are larger social forces at work that thrive off of the repression of this knowledge. (Via Mike Soron.)
Errol Morris talks with Werner Herzog
Amazing and brilliant. Far too many passages worth quoting, so I suggest you read the entire transcript. (Via The Weblog.)
Nader’s Poem
Ralph Nader has composed a poem of sort for Hillary Clinton, which I found via Wonkette. Since I write poetry, I thought I’d offer a helpful critique and a revision of the poem at the end of this post. First the poem itself:
The Tall Tale of Tuzla
Christopher Hitchens writing for Slate on the recent imbroglio over Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia lie:
Were I to be asked if Sen. Clinton has ever lost any sleep over those heaps of casualties, I have the distinct feeling that I could guess the answer. She has no tears for anyone but herself. In the end, and over her strenuous objections, the United States and its allies did rescue our honor and did put an end to Slobodan Milosevic and his state-supported terrorism. Yet instead of preserving a polite reticence about this, or at least an appropriate reserve, Sen. Clinton now has the obscene urge to claim the raped and slaughtered people of Bosnia as if their misery and death were somehow to be credited to her account! Words begin to fail one at this point. Is there no such thing as shame? Is there no decency at last? Let the memory of the truth, and the exposure of the lie, at least make us resolve that no Clinton ever sees the inside of the White House again.
(Thanks to Dylan.)