I have a guest post up at P! Post-Politics in Depth: An Asylum for Broken Rabble. I also wrote an article for ALLiance a while back; look for “Conviviality and Empire” in the table of contents. Enjoy. 
Glenn Greenwald on Neda, Obama, Helen Thomas and the failure of some journalists to comprehend people power. Cutting off Helen Thomas for doing her job is more something I’d expect from Reagan or Bush – it’s just disingenuous, and in this instance, derisive as well. Since when is connecting the dots between U.S. behavior and the behavior of those whom the U.S. critiques off limits? Getting pretty tired of the double-talk, and not really interested in hearing about hope, either. As Bill Maher recently said, “He’s not your boyfriend.”
While I understand that CNN’s coverage on the unfolding events in Iran has improved, and that they’re not the only network that indulges in sensationalism, this is over the top. From Twitter:
@octavianasrCNN: You watched her die in front of your eyes.. Now MEET #NEDA! full report on AC360 #iranelection
I’m waiting for Howard Beale and Sybil the Soothsayer to enter stage left. Or perhaps those wacky revos on the Mao Tse-tung hour…
(Props to @cjdkc on Twitter for bringing this to folks’ attention)
Just Jo Nubian reminds us all to keep under-reported stories about the murdering of African-Americans in the U.S. in mind, as the mainstream media continues to cover events in Iran.
With props to Just Jo Nubian for “The powers = chess”, Davey D for covering this first, and Clay Shirky for the big picture. You all rock my world with your amazing selves. <3
Somewhat distressed over anti-Empire folks from both the progressive left and the anti-NWO right pointing to CIA involvement in Iran in response to recent events. Consider the following scenario, which is based on history + unfolding events; please read accordingly:
Ahmadinejad is asserting that the Iranian uprising is a result of U.S. interference, which is being further reinforced by assertions by anti-Empire activists in the U.S., who point to this history of U.S. intelligence involvement in Iran both historically and as recently as 2008. This argument -– CIA involvement = U.S. backed destabilization — harkens back to the cold war; and while said argument is a matter of record -– the CIA was actively involved in the 1953 coup which brought the Shah to power, for example -– what is also clear is that Iranians in opposition to the current leadership have their own agenda. The inference from some anti-Empire activists that the CIA may have had a hand in the uprising also infers a conflation of the actions of Iranians in opposition to the present leadership with the CIA’s interests — an assertion which is very possibly inaccurate as well as enabling of both Ahmadinejad’s assertions of U.S. interference and the neo-conservative utilization of the present scenario to their own means; in particular, it gives U.S. neo-conservatives an opportunity to attempt undermining of President Obama’s seemingly more nuanced approach, while furthering their own militaristic objectives in the region – hardly an ideal situation for people who are in opposition to U.S. hegemony.
While the legacy of CIA destabilization of regimes around the world remains to this day, the problem is that we’re not in the cold war anymore. Instead, what we have is a global matrix of power that encompasses multiple social forces, both governmental and civic, that are approaching any given scenario -– all with their own needs, desires and objectives, some of which layer over the top of one other. If the cold war is drawn in analogy to checkers, what we have now is chess, of which the internet is a small but very important part, and even more ubiquitous communication tools (cell phones in particular) are actively a part of as well. Losing sight of this means that you’re looking at a different situation, with predictable outcomes, many of which are anything but liberatory.
Lessons so far:
This is the Iranians’ struggle for a new system, period. All of us on the outside who care about that struggle are just the helpdesk, if you will.
The history of CIA involvement in Iran is clear; what is also clear is that there are multiple interests at stake here. Conflating things into a cold-war like form of bilateral detente/brinkmanship is a deeply flawed analysis of this situation, and if anything, reinforces both the current Iranian leadership’s anti-U.S. assertions, as well as the U.S. neo-conservatives’ anti-Iran ones.
Decentralized tools increasingly multiply the chances of decentralized action using those tools (Shirky, 2008, “Here Comes Everybody”). This reality turns an already highly complex global scenario into a vastly more intricate one. Chess, not checkers; and losing sight of that has potentially unfortunate consequences, both for the players as well as those impacted by the “game.”
Rush job Twitter transcript follows below, with minor cleanup for continuity; much cred to Rebecca Walker for saying “more please” at just the right moment. <3
Solidadrocks The problem w/ the old school publishing system is that it constantly feeds off of a writerly underclass; poets are a prime example. (more)
solidadrocks However, Amazon isn’t the solution; open source models + p2p is. If coders can do it, so can writers – musicians already are.
Elliotharmon @solidadrocks What’s that mean? Just distribute our writings by bittorrent and the like?
Solidadrocks @elliotharmon In part, yes. I think what’s still emerging is a means to capitalize on social media for writers specifically (more)
solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) but look at open source software — small distributed model as a result of deflated costs. why publishing (more)
solidadrocks why *old school publishing models don’t work is that
solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) is that digital media has flatted the costs of creating infrastructure, aka distribution. making that model (more)
solidadrocks @elliotharmon (cont.) work is our job. /fin
solidadrocks the irony here is that by pushing the costs of distribution off onto artists, it’s given us the ability to recoup profits directly.
Solidadrocks It’s as if we’re at the stage of building an audience. The expectation is “where’s the money?” but you need to build audience first.
Solidadrocks and fwiw, i have a much bigger audience on the web than i did without it. it’s the first step, but definitely not the last one.
Solidadrocks now, if you already have a large audience, this can seem like a pain. what folks need to consider is how much is getting opened up here.
Solidadrocks a very large, indeterminate number of artists who were heretofore under the radar suddenly have both a broadcast and a distribution model…
solidadrocks …for free. so i’m not exactly sweating copyright, if you get my drift, y’all. 
solidadrocks all i know is that the #hustle is my new currency. less of it means more slack = more time to write. sounds good to me
rebeccawalker @solidadrocks more please.
solidadrocks @rebeccawalker will do – just getting started thanks
elliotharmon @solidadrocks It seems like it’s a much older question sans technology – the freedom of DIY vs. the polish of an established press.
Elliotharmon @solidadrocks Ultimately, the writers I’m most attracted to sort of straddle that fence.
Solidadrocks @elliotharmon like most upheavals in culture, it definitely has a history; as you said, it points back to DIY. free software mvmt, too.
Elliotharmon @solidadrocks The connection to open source is interesting, I hadn’t thought about that.
Solidadrocks I mean, consider the impact of this on an intersexed mixed-race lesbian author w/ radical politics. No longer just a whipping post 4 BillO.
Solidadrocks re IS mixed-race etc. author: not that I’m naming names here or anything. seriously, it changes things.
Elliotharmon @solidadrocks But most attempts I’ve seen to directly monetize online literature are pretty – dopey?
Solidadrocks @elliotharmon I think that’s because 1) digital distro is still new, and 2) consider who is making the platforms.
Elliotharmon @solidadrocks I’d rather to the monetizing in person; i.e., touring.
Solidadrocks @elliotharmon see that’s just it. the same thing is happening w/ musicians — you sell in concert, not through brick and mortar.
Solidadrocks It’s like that poet who is supporting the pirate bay — he’s famous, hell, seemingly he would have a lot to lose. but he notes…
solidadrocks…that audience is the first step. the existing models stifle creativity more than nourish it en masse. Winterston talks about this as well
elliotharmon@solidadrocks Yeah, I get you, and the internet has a pretty amazing ability to nurture marginalized communities, no question.
Solidadrocks @elliotharmon which in turn, opens the possibility for nurturing for everybody, not just the marginalized.
Solidadrocks re the platforms: i think free CMSes such as joomla and drupal, as well as semi-open platforms such as Ning, are the first step in what…
solidadrocks …is going to be a long process. writers and developers collaborating is a critical step in this process imo.
Elliotharmon @solidadrocks This is really interesting, I’ll try to send you an email, but now I gots to work.
Solidadrocks @elliotharmon coolness, please do.
Solidadrocks none of this is to say that people shouldn’t organize for better contracts – they should! but what if you have “the stuff”, but never get 1?
solidadrocks most of the writing contracts i’ve signed over the years have been shit – either $$ but work for hire, or shitty pay w/ some (or no) control
solidadrocks also, the work for hire contracts were for doing things i absolutely hate, like tech writing. UGH. still, i’m fortunate, rel. speaking.
KKK gets pwnd by…clowns. Twitter props to @FeminaPotens and numerous others in the blogtwitterosphere.
Havana times: Homophobia is the problem, not gays.
Wired gets it more or less right this time: The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online. They even break down Clay Shirky’s steps for online collaboration and action! Yay. Serious props to “Anarch” in the article’s comments for pointing out that this isn’t the New Socialism, but is the New Anarchism. You said it compañera/o. Boo to the idiot who said that libertarian socialism contains “a high degree of coercion” because every system that has used the term socialist is coercive, and therefore, he can’t be bothered to look up its history, even when numerous examples of said history were contained within the thread. Kronstadt, hello? /ostrich, FAIL Also, see: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/82/tactical_briefing.html
Joss Whedon on Humanism. A lovely meditation on the need for compassion and intellect over ideology.
Really great guest blog by @Jesimone on walking as healing and the complexities of race.
#win of the week: Sotomayor. Stay strong, Boriqua, we’re counting on you.
#fail of the week: CA supreme court prop8 decision. While I’m glad that they respect the rights of CA residents to make their own decisions (no matter how backward), the whole thing smacks of compromise and politicization. Can’t wait for this shit to get overturned at the ballot box; yet another example of how California is nowhere near as liberal as its reputation suggests.
An epiphany in honor of Jeanette Winterson
It was the spring of 2007 when the work began to dry up. I had been working as a freelance copy writer, as well as doing a bit of work grading ESL papers. Money was tight, but manageably so. Then slowly, things turned to a trickle. The workload was cut, wages were slashed in half. It was quickly becoming pointless, so I walked into the future, into a vast, welcoming sea of…
…total brokeitude.
I have been here before, many a time. Consider 1993, when I was four months behind in rent. Thanks to a landlord that was flexible enough that I’m still convinced that she was not quite of this world, I didn’t end up on the street. Things did turn around though, and before I knew it, I was waist-deep in a solid income. Lo and behold, I even had the approval of my parents, who as much as they love me, have never really got the whole artist deal. I was acceptable, almost normal, even.
I was miserable.
So when things tanked again in 2001, I walked away from moderately well-heeled despair to attempt to undo the horrendous mistake of it all, this time with a bit of severance pay to soften the blow. This in turn led to graduate school, as well as more time protesting than probably was in my best interests. As noted above, a smaller but noticeable amount of regular income came back into my life for a bit, but things soured again.
Would it shock you if this state is where I find myself still, two years in, ever-so-slowly finding my own way, eking out something well beneath what most people in the US would consider to be a stable income – and yet, even the worst days are vastly more sane, balanced and in tune with the world then the best days previously were? If you are confused by my sense of priorities here, consider this: the “best days” during my corporate years were the days where I had a glimpse of my former happy existence as a broke artist.
If this still puzzles you, let me refer you to a white paper, it may help a bit. “A liminal existence.” That’s what the white paper from AWP said about the post-graduate life of people like me. “Liminal.” See? It’s official. What was formerly the exclusive domain of visionaries and other mad people (I’ll leave it to you to decide which one I am) is now a demographic. You can rest easy in the certainty that I have my place on the spreadsheet now.
This certainty of course is preposterous. All they can offer up is what not just any post-MFA student knows, but what any serious aspiring artist knows as well – that the path of the artist is treacherous, frequently full of failure, and further, that a sizable number of the so-called successes fail epicly to a degree that only Guy Fawkes could fully appreciate, with trashed hotel rooms, fits of mania or suicidal tendencies, and various forms of train wrecked existence in lieu of gunpowder plots? Please. Apologies all around, but forget the white paper. What saved my rounded bottom somewhere between the work drying up and the work drying up yet again was Jeanette Winterson.
Listen to her for yourself:
A work of art is abundant, spills out, gets drunk, sits up with you all night and forgets to close the curtains, dries your tears, is your friend, offers you a disguise, a difference, a pose. Cut and cut it through and there is still a diamond at the core. Skim the top and it is rich. The inexhaustible energy of art is transfusion for a worn-out world.
And:
The artist imagines the forbidden because to her it is not forbidden. If she is freer than other people it is the freedom of her single allegiance to her work. Most of us have divided loyalties, most of us have sold ourselves. The artist is not divided and she is not for sale. Her clarity of purpose protects her although it is her clarity of purpose that is most likely to irritate most people. We are not happy with obsessives, visionaries, which means, in effect, we are not happy with artists. Why do we flee from feeling? Why do we celebrate those who lower us in the mire of their own making while we hound those who come to us with hands full of difficult beauty…what would happen to us if we could imagine in ourselves authentic desire?
These quotes are from a magnificent work of hers called Art Objects, and while it would be a stretch to say that it saved my life, it did save me from a very hazardous toying with a return to the death that is corporate america when the ramen ran out yet again, and the cheap rent started to look insanely expensive.
“Objects to what?”, you may ask.
Being constrained, moulded, packaged, lectured, cajoled. Put into a box for safekeeping. Shrink-wrapped. Lied to, sat upon, mistrusted, misunderstood, ignored. (The former activist in me has to find humor in how closely this resembles Proudhon’s admonishment of government – which is no accident or mere coincidence at all.) In which manner does it do so – the protest, the direct action, the takeover? No. It does so through art itself – not the “I’d like something in green to match the sofa” sort of art – which is more a form of interior decorating – but the kind that takes hold of you and refuses to let go. A tempest that devours the teapot and leaves you bare and Awake. It’s what I live for, and while I would never be so rude as to say that it’s what you should do as well, if you do find yourself in fits of despair, you may want to look at where the creativity in your life resides. If the answer to this is “under a rock,” it may be time to get into the mud a bit.
It should be noted though that none of this is meant to romanticize poverty. The rather dismal state of affairs for artists (and increasingly, for everybody who needs to work for a living) has led to a truncation of the inherent need for creativity in people’s lives by war and economic uncertainty. As Winterson points out, “Ours has not been an easy century for art…Two World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, the General Strike of 1926 and the Depression of the 1930s cut short those experiments in language and in thought that human beings perpetually make and perpetually need.” What she specifically is referring to here is Modernism, but this could be applied to present day realities as well. How much has remained unsaid because of famine, disease and the cultural wars against drug users (actual or suspected), against queers, against pretty much anybody who disobeys? Quite a bit – but consider how power always has two sides; while I think that hip-hop would have emerged with or without the drug wars, consider also how the necessary resistance to power on the part of those who were oppressed led to some of the best works of Hip Hop’s first generation. As Hardt and Negri note repeatedly throughout their work, the price that Empire pays for utilizing biopower may be Empire itself. Do be aware though that for those of you who think that “The Work” is fine and all, but that it’s not social change work, and that it’s not even close to being revolutionary? Please do not project onto artists your own failed attempts at fomenting an uprising because we have the ability to charter the chaotic with greater finesse than you. It makes you mundane, and the last thing the world needs is yet another sorry pack of trifling, artless insurrectionists.
Meanwhile, while we all wait and wonder if capitalism is finally done for good, let it be known that what saved me was not the trade organization, not work (definitely not work), and dear god, don’t even get me started about activism. No, it was art, as in The Work. And my Work objects. Frequently and loudly – but more and more as I recover from activism, from the streets, from that anything-but-liminal form of soul death that I used to call a life? Subtly as well. Art resists – but with a sense of style.
Courtesy of Rebecca Walker, The Great Illmatic’s amazing YouTube blog on post-racism, Asher Roth and the racial crossroads.
The funny as hell Stimulator is on a west coast tour – the show is called “Hopium: Confronting Fascism in the Obama era”, and promises to be both lively and informative.
Happy birthday to Malcolm X and Harvey Milk! You both are missed, and frequently in my thoughts. <3
Gaurav Mishra on why he writes about social media.
Noam Chomsky on torture memos and Obama.
Lastly, a wink and a nod to @mmrohrer over on Twitter for noting that yes indeed Virginia, there are sex toys in the bible.
That’s about it! Until next week, be well, stay safe and as always, stay in trouble. ^_^
One of the things that tires me to no end about left activists is the notion that we all have to be on the same page, all the time, about everything. Having weathered through a seemingly endless number of house meetings, groupthinks, clusterfucks and so on, I can personally testify to the incessant drum beat of such practices. Note that this includes anti-authoritarians, although for obvious reasons, not to quite the same degree as a centralized, cadre-driven Marxist-Leninist party: think vegans, punk rock/hipster conformity, and collective living.
In no small part, I think this hive-mind-as-potluck tendency is due to leftover – and in some cases, active – strains of 1960s/70s Leninist centrism within left activist circles; an approach that has its origins in a centralized vanguard controlling a mass movement via multiple satellites. Simply put, this approach has outlived its debatable usefulness, both culturally and practically. If anything, discussing this in anything other than the past tense reflects how much a large portion of the activist left is out of touch with the changes that are happening rapidly within global culture. A cursory glance over the political landscape in the US reveals many recognizable movements, and then there’s the thousands of internet-based groups, of which a small but notable minority are political in nature – and yet, if you were to take your information from your standard Usual Suspects, you would be under the impression that there’s a small scattering of such movements, if not a monolithically framed “The Movement” – as if working for social change was some sort of singularity for process freaks – while groups on the internet are dismissed as being escapist or dilettantish.
In fact, it is not centralized, factory-like apperatti that drive social change at this point; instead, it is the very same tendencies towards decentralization and spontaneous mass formation that are part of the culture as a whole, and that are frequently used to formulate mass opinion via crowd psychology. As awful as that may sound, this trend is enormously beneficial: as Rosa Luxembourg noted back in the day, revolution starts with the unconscious: the spontaneous forming of mass resistance to societal forces occurs when a critical mass of people can’t take the unbearable bullshit of it all and start to fight back. It is after this resistance starts to mature a bit that the need for some sort of organizational structure begins to take root. In addition, as Hardt and Negri note in their seminal books Empire and Multitude, the fomentation of a decentralized mostly rural resistance under a centralized command has started to give way to a urban one of a more autonomous nature, circa 1968 onward. As such, the formation of Empire through a decentralized web of semi-conscious individuals, wherein each person is a potential consumer (or if you will, an energy source within a Matrix-like socioeconomic framework) is also the same mechanism wherein individuals can wake up, creatively formulate and strategize with others, and start to resist their own subjugation.
This process of shifting from centralization to autonomy began as many things do: at the end of a cycle. As anarchists were still suffering from the defeat in Spain (as was everybody on the left who was within Franco’s purview), the beginnings of what would become the New Left were beginning to take shape, both culturally and politically. Possibly because of the psychological impact of World War II, as well as the eventual mass availability of the birth control pill and the personal computer, the progressive modernist ideals of the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th century were giving way to postmodern ones. It is for this reason that what has matured throughout the latter part of the 20th century up to the present day is not a centralized, vertical apparatus, but a swarm of decentralized, horizontal pluralities with varying states of authority or autonomy on a case-by-case basis. Seen through a modernist lens, this may look like a regression; but in fact, it is a meaningful shift in tactics and strategies to the present-day virtuality of culture. What is now clear is that centralized organizing as a unitary movement-generating tool has long outlived its prime, and what the left – and in particular, the radical left – is currently suffering from is the last vestiges of that dying ember.
And now, we find ourselves in the midst of an even more articulated form of autonomous resistance yet again, thanks to the internet. The very technologies that are being used to monitor us all are also being used to coordinate the beginnings of mass resistance. As Clay Shirky notes in his seminal book Here Comes Everybody, what used to be the exclusive domain of governments and mainstream media is now potentially in the hands of all, or will be very shortly: from flash mobs in Belarus to internet-coordinated student walkouts in the US, people are using digital technology to assert their collective power in creative and unpredictable ways. (The irony of this to Star Trek fans should be evident: it’s as if the Federation – the government – had given the Borg – the resistance – a bad reputation by castigating it as mindless and hierarchal, when in fact the opposite is true.)
With time, hopefully the activist left will start to capitalize more effectively on this trend towards mass decentralization and empowerment, and act accordingly. As it presently stands, it appears that we’re going through a prolonged period of the left using these tools, but not necessarily being adept at manipulating them. (My own personal attempts to educate fellow activists on the usefulness of these technologies can stand as testament to this fact: having grown weary of debating the merits of the web with laptop-lugging luddites and patiently re-re-schooling “How do I use the internet?” newbies, I’ve taken to blogging instead.) While I do think this is a shame, I also contend that it is critical for people on the left to realize that people en masse are going to empower themselves, with or without activists to “help” them. Any other course of action would be a rather profane act of self-effacement, serving no real purpose other than adhere to antiquated notions about the nature of power in society, such as technology being exclusively in service to our supposed betters, rather than a multi-faceted manifestation of biopower that embodies as much as it oppresses. Most people do not have the sort of luxury that allows for such adherence, and the left should not delude themselves into thinking that they have that sort of cultural opulence either.
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