Better To Be A Contrarian than Vapid

Nothing like the recent election in the United States to give me a reason to discuss Slavoj Zizek and Bernard-Henri Levy in the same post. 

The contrarian weighs in, arguing that Obama is more than Bush with a human face:

 So should we write Obama off? Is he nothing more than Bush with a human face? There are signs which point beyond this pessimistic vision. Although his healthcare reforms were mired in so many compromises they amounted to almost nothing, the debate triggered was of huge importance. A great art of politics is to insist on a particular demand that, while thoroughly realist, feasible and legitimate, disturbs the core of the hegemonic ideology. The healthcare reforms were a step in this direction – how else to explain the panic and fury they triggered in the Republican camp? They touched a nerve at the core of America's ideological edifice: freedom of choice.

So today, it's ideology critique. Maybe tomorrow it will be the hyperbolic Leninism, and he'll remind us that nobody is quite as revolutionary as himself.

Sure, that's a cynical reading of Zizek, which I think is a product of reading far too much of his work. But Zizek is also far more engaging than our vapid French "intellectual". BHL declares the election--the outcome of which he so foresightedly "predicted"--a great day for America. Why?

It is a victory for a moderate man, whose charisma remains intact.

That's the first reason: a man's got to have him his charisma. That's so important that it overshadows whatever else makes the election great.

Perhaps we can get more specific:

It is a victory for his strategy of government intervention that has allowed the United States to weather the storm for four years.

The the second aspect of this victory strikes me as ambiguous. It seems to be commending Obama's mild commitment to using government to blunt the effects of the economic downturn. But when I hear "intervention" from BHL, I think Libya, meaning that he could also be commending Obama's continued commitment to the "war on terror" or whatever it's called now.

This is followed with a bit of non-self-reflexive pundit scolding, so that BHL can reinforce  his view of what makes the election such an event. I know you're waiting for it:

It is a historic victory.

It is a great day for America and for the world.

Sometimes great nations have a rendezvous with greatness, and such is the case today.

So bold! So declarative! So historic that it can be encapsulated, if we leave out the blathering about pundits, in the most profound 262 words you'll ever read.

Or, perhaps, BHL dashed it off while nursing a wicked hangover.

Memo: The "S" Word

To: Joshua and all other interested parties
re: The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism (Verso, 2011)

Not so long ago-- before the #occupy movement, but still it was July-- you posted a short piece called "Every time the Left Sins God Sends Another Working-class American to the Tea Party." You argued that the American Left needed to appropriate the American history of radicalism and socialism without leaving it to the right:

Many Leftists articulate American working-class needs by using overly intellectual rhetoric. The Left does not need to dumb down information, just break it down. Many Leftists use other countries' revolutionaries and revolutions as symbols of liberation and outright ignore American equivalents. What about heroes of struggle such as Thomas Paine,John Brown, and Mary Harris "Mother" Jones? What about celebrating movements such as the BOSTON TEA PARTY?

Particular aspects of this kind of discussion always worry me, especially appeals to the War of Independence and the Tea Party. I wrote, in a comment:

We cannot, and should not, attempt to out-jingoize the Right (which isn't your point, but the issue could be lurking there). The radical left has a much stronger history with abolitionism, the IWW and union activism (Eugene V. Debs, anybody?), and the Harlem Renaissance, than the transfer of power from the British to American bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the symbolic reference points take on gravity from organization rather than the reverse.

Like I said, things were different then. While I never took the Tea Party seriously (which is much easier to do when you're not surrounded by it), that astro-turf bus tour has been quickly forgotten behind the strength of the Occupy movement. But that doesn't mean that our discussion has  become academic. What of the American history of socialism and radicalism?

It turns out we're not the only people thinking about it. John Nichols' The "S" Word  is an important re-examination of American socialism. The book is structured chronologically, with Chapter 2 dealing with Tom Paine, Chapter 3 with the abolitionism of Abraham Lincoln, Chapter 4 with the successes of socialist governance in Milwaukee, Chapter 5 with the anti-war movement during World War I, and Chapter 6 on the contributions of socialist thought and practice on the civil rights movement.

But let's not make any mistake. Chronological or not, the book opens with two chapters that ought to shame Republicans for their (mis-) appropriations of Thomas Paine or Abe Lincoln, who were much more open minded than contemporary Fox News conservatives, who proposed and considered ideas that were much more socialist than most Democrats would mull over today.

From there Nichols turns to the local electoral successes of socialists, primarily in Milwaukee. But his larger point is that many of the ideals we on the left work with have a much longer history than is commonly assumed.

There is nothing new, nothing "modern," about this understanding of the need to cross lines of race, creed, ethnicity and gender in order to make a fundamental change. Joseph Weydemeyer, the follower of Marx and Engels who advocated "true socialism," organized the American Workers League in 1853 with the stated purpose of uniting workers "without respect to occupation, language, color or sex" (179).

You read the number correctly: 1853. Nichols argues that avowed socialists have worked for over a century and a half toward transforming the lives of Americans against some of the most fierce political opposition (see the chapter on the opposition to World War I).

I don't want to carry on too long, given that this was supposed to be a short memo. Let me say a few more things in shorthand. The primary weakness of Nichols's book can be summarized like this: too much love for Edward Bernstein's followers, and not enough for John Brown. Meaning that Nichols heavily favors electoral action, and does not discuss what the historical significance of revolutionary violence, or non-statist political organization, might mean (which is in part understandable given that the right currently holds a monopoly on extra-state violence). Also, he makes numerous appeals to American socialism as an  American tradition and not just a foreign imposition--but we really need to be careful with this kind of rhetoric, for it appeals to many of the shared assumptions of a country built on settler colonialism (though Nichols does not ignore this issue; see p. 70).

However, these criticisms should not overshadow the merits of The "S" Word. Given that the first chapter and the afterword situate the history of socialism within contemporary debates, the book might just be the general starting point for reconsidering the history of American radicalism. Given that the Democrats have largely abandoned many of the concerns that allied them with the working class and the civil rights movement, in favor of a politics of progressive verbiage, it may well be, as Nichols writes, "that the only word of the left that still has any meaning is 'socialism.'"

The Occupy Movement and Property Damage

Voyou has a good post (here) on the so-called political consequences of property damage in Oakland (I've said my piece about property damage and police violence here):

Liberals complain about property damage during the various marches and actions, but they’re quick to add that it is not they themselves who are disturbed or offended; rather, they are concerned about the effect this property damage will have on others, particularly the cops who will react violently and the media who will focus on images of destruction to the exclusion of whatever else the demonstration achieved. The liberal’s position here is perverse in the Lacanian sense: it expresses itself not as an actual desire, but as a desire to be the instrument of the desire of some fantasized other. Part of what supports this disavowed desire is that the objection to property damage can present itself as neutral, even expert, strategic advice. It’s bad strategic advice, though, and I think in a revealing way...

See that ellipsis? Keep reading  HERE.

September 1, 1939 (WWII), September 11, 1973 (Chile), September 11, 2001 (USA)

Referring to the outbreak of World War II the Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden wrote a poem titled September 1, 1939. Here are some of the lines:

Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night...

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

The poem invokes an understanding of how violence and war fit into the cycles of human civilization.

On September 11, 2001 when I received information on the news about the terrorist attacks life felt surreal. Never since the War of 1812 did the US suffer an attack on the mainland soil. Unlike the majority of the world, north Americans are not familiar with such experiences. We north Americans bonded with solidarity. There were vigils and touching conversations. There were also increased levels of hate. People of color were targeted for abuse by thugs. In my own Central Vally Californian town I saw, alongside US flags, large Civil War Confederate flags waving on large trucks. Subdued political tendencies became openly pronounced. There were calls for war and calls for peace. More war prevailed and the violent cycle of human civilization continues.

After September 11, 2001 I learned of September 11, 1973. A catastrophic event on the whole of American society. This American tragedy occurred further south in Chile. It deserves to be told on the same day because this September 11 bloodletting was linked to US "pragmatic" strategies of Cold War politics. I leave a clip from a youtube explaining this often overlooked event. To reflect on our own sufferings I invite the reader to merely turn on the news. The US media is covering it thoroughly. All the sad Septembers should be remembered.We should also ask ourselves what we remember them for.

Helen Keller : Great American Woman Activist

This post better get many hits and I mean it!!! I'm tired of how marginalized Helen Keller is by the Left (and everyone else for that matter). Let us be honest, Keller fits into a condescending role of cutesy survivore victim. Even this youtube has a somewhat childish aesthetic. No matter how great her legacy, she is never presented in the heroic way Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Che Guevara would be. Helen Keller struggled for the rights of the disabled, she was an ardent Socialist, fluent in several languages, spoke live to the Japanese after the bombing of Hiroshima, and lashed out at Nazis for burning books. There are too many things to write and say about her. At least this documentary clip does give brief highlights of her incredible history. She deserves a special place for the American activist in particular. She belongs in posters on radical college students walls. If only she would have donned a beret instead of a bonnet.

Zizek Blames the Left for the Rise of the Right

Recently Slavoj Zizek was interviewed on Democracy Now to talk about the rise of anti-immigrant fervor in Europe and his newly published book Living in the End Times. Addressing the current rise of the Right in Europe and the US, he referred to Walter Benjamin's observation that, "Behind every fascism is a failed revolution." Unlike his frequent rantings that can be difficult to follow at times, he makes his points in this interview very clear: The Left is to blame for the rise of the Right.