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anti-capitalists - happy or sad?

yawn - thing's buddy

20:51 / 18.09.01

,

,

,

,

or

.

Well?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:26 / 19.09.01

Me sad. Well, more scared than sad, but...
not strictly a pacifist, but you don't just go round killing thousands of people. Yeah, so Wall Street was closed down for a few days, but a) that doesn't achieve a huge amount in the long-term, and b) that's too high a price to pay. Attacking the LIFFE building, McDonalds, or trying to storm a G8 summit's one thing... Killing civilians is quite another. And to attempt to destroy capitalism and replace it with a theocracy... talk about out of the frying pan.

09:26 / 19.09.01

I'm pretty

, don't know 'bout anybody else.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:26 / 19.09.01

Replace it with a theocracy? As opposed to, for example, a hard right Christian finger puppet industrialist special effect?

America is not a secular state.

10:41 / 19.09.01

Careful when you say that. While it is undoubtedly true that the majority of the ruling class in the US pay at least lip service to "God" (not only the Christian god; witness the spectacle Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate joe Lieberman made of his Jewish Faith last Fall), and that a large majority of the US believes in "god", if you believe polls, it would be inaccurate to say that the "state" of the United States is founded on theology, as the organizing documents (the constitution and such like) are products of enlightenment secular humanism. Despite the intentions and best efforts of many powerful people, the organizing principles behind the US are secular despite the often flagrantly Christian Rhetoric spouted by public figures. Attempts to legislate Christian observances into public life have always met with failure.

Put another way, would you call the US theocratic in the same way that could be said about the Taliban or Israel? The country may be heavily Christian but it seems in a large part guided by people who make their decisions based on the book of Mammon rather than the New Testament.

11:43 / 19.09.01

methinks the stoatish one was referring to the theocratic model of the Taliban...

16:52 / 19.09.01

Fascinating analysis of this very topic in this week's New Republic.

I strongly urge you to read the entire piece, which left me both admiring and furious. A few provocative snippets...

quote: The anti-globalization movement is, in part, a movement motivated by hatred of the global inequities between rich and poor. And it is, in part, a movement motivated by hatred of the United States. Now, after what has happened this week, it must choose.

....some in the anti-globalization movement seem to loathe America so much that they embrace its enemies even when those enemies violate supposedly core movement values--like justice for the world's poor.

quote:...consider the movement's new bible, Empire, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. If... Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden, then anti-globalization activists will make the obvious point that the principles that animate their struggle and those that animate bin Laden's are completely different.

But, according to Empire, that's not so obvious at all. ...Hardt and Negri reject the notion that Islamic fundamentalism is backward-looking, arguing instead that, like the anti-globalization movement, it is "postmodern." ...

[The authors] write that "fundamentalism is postmodern insofar as it rejects the tradition of Islamic modernism for which modernity was always overcoded as assimilation or submission to Euro-American hegemony." And what is the anti-globalization movement itself rejecting if not "assimilation or submission to Euro-American hegemony"?
Interesting point on fundamentalism and post-modernism: suspect that's what Grant M had in mind when he described bin Laden's tactics in grudgingly admiring terms.

Anyone read Empire in its entirety?

[ 19-09-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

16:52 / 19.09.01

Very sad.

Adhering to a hope that we are advancing towards an ideal of unity and peace through our various attempts at human philosophy has led me to observe, in the past, that a growing number of Westerners seemed to be moving beyond strict capitalism, holding on to those parts of ideology that work, and shifting their attentions outwards for a new structure. The number might not have been significant, not yet, but it seemed to be growing.

But the terrorist attack forces polarization, a most insidious undermining of unconventional philosophy - tripping a "snap-back" into one of two viewpoints. 'With us or against us' said the President, and no doubt, say the terrorists.

And now those of us who love our safety, and love the safety of our friends and neighbors, are forced to ask ourselves: "with or against?", losing the luxurious peace-time exploration of ideological options. We are forced to slip into moral balances: "this bad is better than that bad".

A polarized world forces the consolidation of ideology in, what may otherwise be, an unnatural assembly. Is the ideal of American life inextricably tied to capitalist venture? Do the Declaration of Independance and the freedoms afforded by the Constitution mesh unalterably with the economy of scale?

Now they do. The unifying rhetoric of a society under threat necessitates it. We are with it all or against it all.

Very sad.

Regrettable Juvenilia

22:29 / 20.09.01

Scared, mostly.

15:38 / 17.10.01

Bumping this thread 'cuz I think this is an area we need to explore. Here's part of my post from a different thread (thanks JF!)

Interesting article by Naomi Klein on the effects of Sept 11 on the anti-globalization movement .

quote:After September 11, politicians and pundits around the world instantly began spinning the terrorist attacks as part of a continuum of anti-American and anticorporate violence: first the Starbucks window, then, presumably, the WTC. New Republic editor Peter Beinart seized on an obscure post to an anticorporate Internet chat room that asked if the attacks were committed by "one of us." Beinart concluded that "the anti-globalization movement...is, in part, a movement motivated by hatred of the United States"--immoral with the United States under attack.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:49 / 17.10.01

For what it's worth, I think it's a mistake to characterise 'Islamic Fundamentalism' as inherently backward-looking. The Islamic model requires constant retooling, and Islam under stress returns to core values and tries to interpret them in new ways. It's a great deal like interpreting core democratic values and notions of being American (for example) in every generation.

Which could be post-modern, I suppose. Certainly it's a situation which could be described in that way. But the attempt to decry something by saying it's backward-looking rests in any case in a notion of the inherent superiority of the Now - as silly an idea as the inherent superiority of the past.

'Fundamentalism' in this context is a way of dressing up 'counter-revolutionary, neo-phobic, reactionary bastard' in a neat package you can use on CNN. It applies across the religious and political board, and all it really means is that your stance is isolationinst, physically or emotionally violent, resistant to change and exclusive. That describes some capitalists and some anti-capitalists, of course.

Can we have a revolution against shitheads, please?

15:54 / 17.10.01

Heard Andrew Sullivan use an interesting term to describe bin Laden and the Taliban: rather than "fundamentalists" or even "extremists," he called them Islamo-fascists.

Which I found an interesting neologism...

16:02 / 17.10.01

For what it's worth, Negri and Hardt describe fundamentalisms of all kinds (expecially Islamic) as post-modern (partly) because these ideologies attempt to construct the future from an imagined, perfect past, rather than from what really happened historically. In other words, the fundamentalists are trying to recreate something that never really existed, except in their reading of history. Fundamentalism is hyperreality like Disneyland.

Frances Farmer

18:22 / 17.10.01

quote:
"In a sane world, rather than fueling
such a backlash the terrorist attacks would raise questions about why US intelligence agencies were spending so much time spying on environmentalists and Independent Media Centers instead of on the terrorist networks plotting mass murder. Unfortunately, it seems
clear that the crackdown on activism that predated September 11 will
only intensify, with heightened surveillance, infiltration and police
violence. It's also likely that the anonymity that has been a hallmark of anticapitalism--masks, bandannas and pseudonyms--will become more suspect in a culture searching for clandestine operatives in its midst."

Can the bit about intelligence resources being used to investigate anti-globalists and independent media organizations be demonstrated?

If so, my - my, that's some awfully dangerous PR material, there.

"If the CIA hadn't been so busy defending their wallets, 6,000 wouldn't have died,".

Furthermore, the math says 5,000. Of course, I believe this number to be false to begin with -> but toting around the 6k figure seems irresponsible and sensationalist. "They took 6,000 of ours, and you expect us to let them LIVE?".

Like, right. That's not what Thoreau meant by "Simplify, simplify, simplify..".

Er. I'm all over the place.

18:42 / 17.10.01

FWIW, the new "anti-terrorist" bill going before parliament has a specific clause about "giving the police power to demand people remove face coverings" - which is transparently anti-protest rather than anti-terrorist.

I expect there are other similar anti-anti-capitalist measures there too, but I haven't had a chance to look at the full text.

Strangely under-reported, that one.

18:54 / 17.10.01

And of course, our new O-so-fair anti-terorism bill has all ready passed the senate.

quote:Highlights of the anti-terrorism bill passed by the Senate:

-Increases penalties for committing terrorism.

-Increases penalties for harboring or funding terrorists or terrorist organizations.

-Makes terrorism a reason for federal officials to get a wiretapping order.

-Allows federal officials to get a wiretapping order that would follow a suspect to any phone the person uses.

-Allows federal officials to get nationwide search warrants for terrorism investigations.

-Allows the attorney general to detain foreigners suspected of terrorism. The attorney general then has to start deportation proceedings, during which the foreigner must stay in federal custody, or charge the person with a crime. If neither is done within seven days, the foreigner must be released.

-Enhances data sharing between the FBI (news - web sites), the State Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and foreign governments in terrorism investigations.

-Makes committing an act of terrorism against a mass transit system a federal crime.

-Makes illegal the possession of substances that can be used as biological or chemical weapons for any purpose besides a ``peaceful'' purpose.

19:32 / 17.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Frances:
[QB]

Furthermore, the math says 5,000. Of course, I believe this number to be false to begin with -> but toting around the 6k figure seems irresponsible and sensationalist. "They took 6,000 of ours, and you expect us to let them LIVE?".
QB]

Why on earth don't you believe that 5,000 people died in the world trade center? If anything, given the number of people who work there are pass through the area every morning, that almost seems miraculously low.

Under what definition of "sensationalist" can the news of the death of any number of thousands of people? "Gee, Tom Brokaw sure is exagerrating the scope of this tragedy. Only 4,977 people have confirmed missing, not 6,000."